The Spawn of Sloan
by lovelystarz
Summary: Ella Sloan was no happy camper. She was a broken girl with a lot of anger aimed towards her estranged father Mark. But when Ella has to swallow her pride and head to Seattle for help, she finds out that maybe the man she wrote off so many years ago has been trying to protect her all this time and just maybe, father and daughter can reconcile and be the family that they both need.
1. Chapter 1

_"When one has not had a good father, one must create one."  
>Friedrich Nietzsche <em>

Ella Matilda Sloan stared out of the cab window and watched as the cab slowly pulled up outside her destination. It was raining heavily out side and it wasn't nice rain like the rain that Ella liked back in New York. Instead it was a heavy downpour of rain, the kind that made it hard so see anything that was in front of you. Ella looked at the name of the hospital and sighed, this was the last place she had ever wanted to come but she needed money. And this was the only the place where she could get it from, the only other option wasn't exactly optional. This would be the first and only time she entered the hospital.

"Kid, you sure you're going to be alright? You sure you don't want to call your parents." The cab driver asked turning in his seat and pointing to Ella's arm, which looked like it was broken and certainly for Ella was hurting like hell.

"Yeah I'll be fine, that's why I had you drop me off here I'm going to have it checked out. I have relatives here…" Ella told the driver with a forced smile before awkwardly paying him with the last forty bucks she had to her names. With her arm in the condition that it was in Ella had to open the door first before grabbing her bag with her good arm, running into the hospital wasn't an option with her arm the way it was so instead Ella had to walk, getting slightly drenched by the rain in the process. No that it made much difference as she was already soaking wet to begin with. Hobbling inside the hospital trying not to move her bad arm whilst carrying her duffle bad in her good arm Ella looked around and headed towards the first medical looking person she could find. "Excuse me… Can you tell me where I can find Derek Shepherd?"

"You're looking for Dr. Shepherd?" The blonde woman asked clearly surprised that a fourteen year old girl was asking where to find a neurosurgeon, despite the fact that were indeed in a hospital.

"Yes, I am." Ella quickly stated, as she shifted her weight as her bag was falling off her shoulder but she ended up moving the top half of her body too much, causing a sharp pain to go up her bad arm. Ella had to bite down on her lip in order to prevent herself from crying out in pain.

"Kid, you should really let me take care of your arm."

Ella shook her head furiously; she wasn't here about her bloody arm. "No, I have to see Derek Shepherd first. I need you to bring him here to me and then I'll get my arm looked at. I have to see him before it's too late, I don't have much time left…"

"Fine." The blonde woman says relenting. "Who should I say is asking for him?"

"His niece. "Tell him that Ella Matilda Perry is here and I need to see him right away and make sure he doesn't talk to anyone on his way here." Ella said, she needed this entire thing to go off without her father knowing she was here hence the reason why she told the blonde woman to make sure Derek didn't speak to anyone on his way to her. Ella's presence here was going to bring up a lot of questions without her father getting involved. The blonde woman nodded, somewhat agreeing with the request and motioned for Ella sit down in the waiting area whilst she went to get Derek. Sitting down Ella stared aimlessly around, soon enough she felt her exhaustion catching up with her but Ella reminded herself she could not fall asleep here. Ella had no idea how long she had been sitting in the waiting room but eventually she saw a familiar dark haired man bending down to look at her.

"Hey sweetheart, it's been a long time…" Derek began.

"I know." Ella wearily replied.

"Dr. Stevens here tells me something's wrong with your arm and you wouldn't let her take a look at it until she came and got me. Do you think I could get someone to look at it whilst you and I catch up?" Derek offered.

Ella took a moment before she spoke. "I suppose so. I think it's broken or at least a dislocation."

"That's okay, we'll just have to fix you up and get you warmed up whilst we're at it." Derek assured Ella as he helped her stand as the blonde doctor came over with a wheelchair. Guiding Ella into the char, Derek took her bag from her and that's all Ella could really remember after she had an x-ray and a Dr. Torres came into the trauma room to tell her that it was indeed a dislocation. "I still can't get over you Ella, you've grown at least two inches since the last time I saw you… And your hair, it use to be so long! But it looks nice short, it suits you very well.

"Yeah…" Ella grimily replied at the mention of her hair before being distracted by the agonizing pain of Dr. Torres popping her shoulder back into place. "You could have warned me!"

Dr. Torres smiled. "Better if you don't expect it."

"So what happened Ella? How'd you dislocate your shoulder?" Derek asked.

"I was clipped by a car on my way out of the bus station, it was raining and the driver couldn't see properly so it's no big deal. Small accident…" Ella murmured more to herself than anyone.

"So, what's with telling Dr. Stevens that your last names is Perry? As I remember it's still Sloan and Perry was your mother's surname." Derek asked and Ella looked around uncomfortably. She must have been stupid to think that her father wasn't going to come up in some shape of form, it was the downside of having her father's best friend as her godfather.

"Not for the last two years it hasn't, I forged Mark's signature two days after I arrived at Brewster's so there I'm known just as Ella Perry, which is a good things as it allows me to forget what a useless excuse for a father Mark Sloan is." Ella bitterly replied.

"Mark Sloan is your dad? As in Dr. Sloan from plastics?" Dr. Torres asked in shock and Ella just knew by her shocked response that she had slept with him. It was a kind of disturbing gift Ella had developed over the years and one she did not want at all but she was stuck with it. Dr. Torres surprise over her father's identity didn't shock Ella as her father was the last person you'd expect to be a father as he was a die hard lothario. Even Ella found it hard to believe that he was her father the majority of the time.

"He's most certainly not my dad, Mark is just my biological father…" Ella spat.

"Ella…" Derek began.

"What? It's the truth." Ella retorted.

"Does he know you're here? Because he didn't tell me you were coming…" Derek asked.

"Don't be ridiculous Uncle Derek, I haven't spoken to Mark or seen him since he shipped me off to boarding school two years ago. He has no clue that I'm here, the only reason I know he's here in Seattle is because of your letters." Ella admitted as Dr. Torres put her arm into a sling.

"You haven't heard from him in two years?" Derek asked in disbelief.

"Not since he stuck me on that plane to the middle of know where, the only people I heard from where Aunt Addison for a while, you and the my mom's family and I'm fine with that Uncle Derek. I didn't come to Seattle to see Mark. I came here to see you. I need your help…"

"With what?" Derek slowly asked.

"I know that this is a lot to ask and I wouldn't be here if I didn't have any other options but I need some cash, a lot of it and a plane ticket to New York and for you to get my passport off Mark. I can't explain why right now but I need you to do me this favor without asking any questions." Ella said watching the confusion build up on Derek's face.

"Why? Are you in trouble Ella?" Derek questioned.

"Not exactly."

"Then why do you need money and a plane ticket back to New York?"

"Forget it. Clearly I was wrong about you being able to help me in my time of need, I'll call Aunt Star and she'll help me. One call from her and I'll be back in New York with my family again and this time for good. I'm sorry for wasting your time, I'll get out of your way." Ella said as slid of the bed and picked up her bag with her available hand and made her way out of the trauma room, walking through whatever doors she could see and before long she was walking through some kind of hallway. Unfortunately Ella could hear Derek calling after her but she ignored him and kept walking just as someone started talking to him. Ella finally reached an elevator and once she stepped inside Ella thought she was safe but just as the doors were closing Derek walked in.

"Ella, where are you going?" Derek asked as Ella pressed a button in the elevator.

"I don't know! Anywhere but here!" Ella angrily said before reluctantly sighing.

Something's going on Ella, tell me what is?"

"I don't want to talk Uncle Derek, I want to go home!" Ella snapped as the elevator doors opened and she walked out as fast as she could. However Derek was taller, so two steps for Ella was one step for him and so he got ahead of her and then blocked her path.

"Ella… please talk to me, I haven't seen you in two years and when I do it's because you have a dislocated arm and now you want to leave. What's going on? Why did you come all this way to ask for my help when you should be at school? Derek said and Ella had to look away as it was impossible for her to hide anything from him, as Derek always knew when something was wrong and could always get Ella to spill. "This is me Ella, you know you can tell me anything so talk to me, tell me what's wrong."

"You know back there in the trauma room when I was getting my arm looked at and you said you liked my hair short, well it wasn't my choice to cut it this short… They decided that it would be funny to chop it off." Ella quietly said.

"They? Whose they?"

"The elitist of Brewster… all the people you would expect, jocks, cheerleaders it was all that crowd. They made my life a living hell, never made me feel welcome; everyone thought it was funny to pick on the new kid from New York. First my belongings started going missing but I wouldn't let it get me, I held my head up and I didn't let it bother me. Things kept getting worse like too much salt in my food, frogs in my bed, being tripped up until about two days ago…"

"What happened?" Uncle Derek questioned.

Ella swallowed an almighty lump in her throat. "I was grabbed from my bed in the middle of the night and bound, gagged and blindfolded, when the blindfold was removed I noticed I was tied to a chair in the girls bathroom. They had purposely placed me in front of a mirror so I could watch as they cut off my hair with a pair of old scissors. Before leaving me tied to the chair all night until Matron found me in the morning. She then fixed my hair before I left… I had dealt with a lot of things there but my hair was the last straw. I packed my bags and left and here I am."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me about this." Derek slowly said. "Or even Mark…"

"Why the hell would I have told Mark? He was the one who sent me there in the first place, if he knew what was going on there he would have made sure that I stayed there. So I told no one, it was easier if pretended to you all everything was fine when it was far from fine."

"What…? Mark told us it was your idea that you needed to get away after everything that happened with your mom."

Ella ruefully shook my head. "Why would I want to leave? My whole life was in New York… My friends and my family. I never wanted to go Brewster's. Mark sent me there because I was going to tell you that him and Aunt Addison were having an affair. That's why I had been acting so weird before I left because I had found out the dirty secret and I told Mark I was going to tell you. He couldn't have that so the first chance he could Mark stuck me on a plane… I cried for a week after I arrived and I tried calling and writing to Mark pleading for him to let me come home but he just kept ignoring me, so eventually I just gave up. Mark allowed me to go home to New York to stay with my family as long as I would go back. It's been that way ever since…"

"Derek…" A deep voice that Ella recognized to he that of her father's; one Dr. Mark Sloan and ever reluctantly she turned around and when he saw her the shock on Mark's face was clear as day. Ella was the last person he was expecting to see although she was surprised that he recognized her but then again how hard was it to recognize your spitting double? Much to Ella's annoyance she looked very much like Mark. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" Ella retorted, the last thing she wanted to do was run into her father but now that she had she might as well use it to her advantage.

"Lemme guess, you need some money?" Mark states taking out his wallet out of his lab coat and handed Ella a stack of notes. "That should be enough to get you back to school although I don't really understand why you're not there."

Nice to see you too daddy dearest Ella thought to herself as she took the money and stuffed it into my coat pocket. "I also need my passport, so where is it?"

"It's not here, I'll have to go get it so wait downstairs and I'll be back with it in a hour, then your getting on a plane back to school." Mark said in a tone of voice that suggested that he was getting more annoyed as time passed and the feeling was completely mutual for Ella. Who had decided that given that Mark wasn't making much fuss, she'd go along with this until he handed over her passport and called to book a flight. Ella figured she'd do it and instead book a ticket for New York instead of Minnesota. When Ella was at school Mark kept a hold of her passport, only sending a courier down with it when she was coming home for the holidays. Then he'd send a courier to pick it up once she had returned to school. This time she'd keep it and Mark would get the surprise of his life when he eventually found out Ella hadn't gone back to school.

"Whatever… Thanks for helping me out Uncle Derek, I'll call you and let you know when I'm safe." Ella said as she looked Derek who had yet to say anything before she began to walk away with Mark.

"You're not going anywhere Ella, you are staying right here." Derek stated before turning to Mark. "You told me that Ella wanted to go to Brewster's because she was still having a hard time coping after Sabrina's death but now I find out that you sent her there to keep the fact that you were having an affair with my wife a secret!"

"Derek… it's not like that!"

"Oh really Mark? Because from where I'm standing it is, I've forgiven you for everything with Addison but this… I don't think I can. Using your own child and her grief to cover your secrets up in disgusting. "

"So what? I sent her to boarding school it's no big deal!" Mark retorted.

Derek's face started going red and it was beyond clear that he was ready to punch Mark in the face – which Ella wished he would. "It is when you lied about it and sent Ella there against her will, you had no idea what was going on in that place because you haven't even bothered to check in with her. I remember times when I asked you how she was doing and you'd tell me she was doing fine but now I find out really you were content with ignoring her for two years! How the hell do you go two years without checking up on your own child!"

"The school never called me, so I assumed she was fine!"

"Well I wasn't fine Mark! I w-was far from fine, I getting my head dunked down toilets, being pushed down stairs and locked in supply closets amongst other things in that hellhole! I was in my own virtual hell in that place but they like you sending them cheques for over thirty grand a year, so of course they wouldn't call you to inform you that your child is being victimized by her classmates."

"What…?"

"Spare me the pretense, they could have killed me and the only thing you would have been bothered about was the inconvenience it caused you." Ella snapped.

"Look at her Mark, this isn't the same girl you shipped off to boarding school, you sent her to place full of animals. They tied her to a chair and made her watch as they cut off her hair. Then when she left to come and get help from me because she can't count on you she got hit by a cab and dislocated her arm or have you not noticed the sling around Ella's neck?"

"Uncle Derek… stop it, I see what you're trying to do but it won't work, Mark doesn't care." Ella stated. "You kept me there for two years, I'm telling you right now I'm not going back. Instead I'm going home to New York."

"What if you stayed here?" Derek offered.

"Excuse me?" Mark and Ella say simultaneously before looking at each other rather uncomfortably.

"Instead of going back to New York, why don't you stay here in Seattle with us? And if after a year if things aren't working out, I will take you back to New York myself." Derek said expanding on his previous offer.

"Uncle Derek, I love you but you are out of your god damn mind if you think I'm staying in the same city as Mark. I don't have to tell you what happened the last time we lived anywhere near each other. It just doesn't work and I don't exactly want anything do with him anymore. Just get him to send the tuition money to Uncle Sam." Ella replied wearily looking at both her uncle and father before trying to walk away.

Derek made another successful attempt to block Ella's path. "Look Ella after hearing what's happened to you, I don't want you to leave. You came to me for help and I want to do that Ella, I want to make sure that you're okay."

"I'm not crazy." Ella stated.

"I know."

"And I'm not depressed either, just not happy. I just want to go home."

"What do you say Ella? Will you give it a year? For me?" Derek asks.

Ella looked at Mark, silently eyeing him, she was going to end up regretting this big time. "Maybe… I'm only saying this because we all know that I can't go back to New York looking like this, Aunt Star would have a major fit if I did and Pops and Nana would have a heart attack. But why are you asking me? It's not up to me."

Derek looked at Mark and motioned for him to follow him and the two of them walked a few yards, presumable to where they thought Ella wouldn't be able to hear them but she could. "You're going to fix this! Look at her Mark, she used to be such a happy go lucky child… god knows what they did to her at that school for her to end up like this. The girl over there is not the Ella Sloan I remember, she's unhappy and skeptical of everything and everyone most importantly she is exhausted and appears to be on the verge of having some kind of breakdown. I don't care what you have to do to fix whatever damage that school has inflicted on her but I want to see some trace of the Ella Sloan, I knew. The one who was always happy and laughing…"

"You can stay." Mark says using the words that Ella had do desperately wanted him not to say when he along with Derek returned.

"Yay…" Ella replied in the most sarcastic voice she could muster.

"Ella." Derek warned.

"Sorry but the dark, bitter, twisted, angry and sarcastic act is kind of my thing now Uncle Derek. The girl you one knew, the one that smiled and laughed who liked drawing and playing? She died two years ago." Ella replied.

Given the change of situation and how Ella was now with adults who one of whom she hated with a passion and the other one she actually loved and listened to. She was quite surprised when she agreed to having a physical to assure Derek that she was physically okay, except for the dislocated arm. However she wasn't too surprised when the doctor who had done the physical told Derek and Mark that not only was her body covered in a lot of bruises but she was underweight and suffering from exhaustion. Mark and Derek on the other hand were. The next problem emerged when Derek wanted Ella to admitted to the hospital and she wasn't having any of it until things got kind of hazy and Ella lost her footing. So whilst Derek was talking to the nurses about something Mark and Ella were left alone for the first time in just over two years in Ella's room.

"Is this all your stuff?" Mark asked in a tone of voice that offended Ella greatly as she pulled out her pajamas from her bag.

"I'm not a vagrant Mark, I do have other possessions whilst you were only concerned with paying to keeping me at Brewster's. Aunt Star and Uncle Sam paid for everything else but it's all back in New York, I learnt very quickly not to keep anything except for the basic essentials at Brewster's." Ella snapped before storming into the bathroom door to get changed, which was harder then she originally anticipated given her arm.

"Right… I have them send your stuff down, what should I tell your aunt? I know she'll be difficult and want answers." Mark asked through the door as Ella awkwardly managed to get changed. "Ella?"

Ella need a moment to think about what to tell Mark, if she didn't word it just right then her aunt would know immediately something was wrong. But just thinking of an excuse was making her head ring so she deflected back to Mark. "Use your bloody imagination Mark… Tell her that Brewster didn't work out! just don't tell her anything about what I've said. She'll get really pissed off and that's the last thing I want. There's a reason why I kept quiet all these years Mark and that's because I love my family Mark and I will not have them hurt after everything they have done for me…"

"When did you stop calling me dad?" Mark asked when Ella finally came out of the bathroom and she had the urge to snap something because of his question.

"When you stopped deserving to be called my dad, which was two years, three month and ten days ago. It was a week after you sent me to Brewster's and I had tried calling you for the 1000th time begging you to let me come home. It kind of hit me how selfish you were, I had always you were selfish but that day it hit me hard. You chose your best friends wife over your own daughter. I was barley twelve years old. That hurt, for a long time actually but I got over it…" Ella honestly admitted as she climbed into of bed."

"Your angry." Mark said stating the most obvious thing in the world.

"What did you expect Mark? For me to be all happy and cheerful? If you haven't failed to notice or listen to Uncle Derek, I'm not the same girl I was back then. The only things that are the same from back then is that mom's still dead, Uncle Derek is here and I'm stuck with you again. I get to be angry all I like because I haven't slept in close to twenty two hours and I was hit by car. Not to mention what I've gone through and that instead of having mom I'm stuck with you. The type of guy who has no business raising a child, let alone having any. Everything I am and all of this? It's all on you." Ella spat and the room fell silent, Ella didn't say anything as if she said one more thing she was sure she'd have a breakdown and she assumed Mark didn't say anything in fear of being shouted at again. Thankfully Derek chose to walk in.

"I brought you some food." Derek said holding out a sandwich towards Ella. "It's your favourite, tuna and cucumber."

"I'm not hungry."

Derek sighed and sat down on the edge of Ella's bed. "I know your very mad at your dad and you have every right to be but don't do this to punish him. You need to eat Ella, you heard what Dr. Hudson said about how you need to gain at least ten pounds."

"If I stopped eating because of Mark that would mean he actually had an effect on me or that I cared what he thought which by the way I don't. I'm not hungry Uncle Derek and if I force myself to eat that sandwich I will most likely threw it all back up minutes later." Ella said, yawning shortly afterwards.

"Maybe you should get some sleep then, you do look exhausted. I don't know I've managed to stay up this long despite everything that's happened these last twenty four hours." Derek advised and Ella just shook her head. "You're not going to sleep either now?"

"I don't sleep. I can't sleep. At least for longer then three hours at a time, I'm always tired but my mind knows that it has to stay awake and be prepared in case they come for me again. Weeks and weeks I wait because I know they like for me when I least suspect it, when I'm the most vulnerable and unprepared; when I'm asleep…" Ella quietly said.

"They can't get you here Ella, your safe." Derek assured her.

"What if I'm not? What if I wake up and find out that this has all been a dream? They'll do it Uncle Derek, they will kill me. It's only a matter of time." Ella wearily replied, having to clench her hand into a fist in order to stop it from shaking.

"This isn't a dream, when you wake up you'll be here. I promise that you'll never have to go back to that place again, now shut your place we'll stay with you until you fall asleep…"


	2. Chapter 2

_"Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." _

_Carl Bard_

Ella was woken up by the blaring sunlight coming in from the open blinds and she would have turned over if it wasn't for her silly arm and the sound of various people whispering rather loudly outside her room. Ella chose to ignore them in favor of sleep but moments later she heard the door creak up and the sound of shoes shuffling inside much to her displeasure. Which kept her from realizing that she had slept an entire night for the first time in months.

"Are you sure about this? Sloan having a kid? It can't be true…" A man asked and Ella couldn't help but agree with it, sounded a bit good true to be true or rather a the must unlikely thing ever but Ella was living proof of it.

"Yes I am sure! Firstly it's Sloan outside the door and secondly it's all around the hospital." A woman hisses in response.

"Do you all mind? I was trying to sleep before you all barged in if you hadn't of noticed." Ella announced as she sat up in bed and looked at the five people who stood in front of her looking rather sheepish until Ella recognized the blonde woman who she met last night. Who also seemed to remember her.

"Hey! You're the kid from last night… Dr. Shepherd's niece, right?" Dr. Stevens asks and Ella reluctantly nods.

"That I am amongst other things including that of being one Ella Sloan, the girl who you've all come to stare at and about that, don't you all have better things to be doing other than coming to stare at a sleeping fourteen year old girl? Kind of creepy if you ask me." Ella questioned as she awkwardly climbed out of bed, as Ella did she noticed the woman with the curly black hair eying up her chart so she grabbed the chart before the woman could.

"Hey!"

Ella rolled her eyes as she tucked her chart under her bad arm. "That is none of your business now unless you want to get in trouble with a very famous hotshot doctor around here who loves seeing me happy then I would suggest you all tell me who you are. Given that it's the only polite thing seeing as I've caught you in my room and introduced myself."

"Alex Karev."

"Cristina Yang."

"Izzie Stevens."

"George O'Malley"

"Meredith Grey."

"Ah, so you're the infamous Meredith Grey? The intern who was sleeping with her attending, I've heard a lot about you from Nancy." Ella said and a look of despair crossed Meredith's face. "Don't worry I won't bite your head off or anything, I don't hate you like Nancy does."

"–Wait, so your last name is Sloan but Derek is your uncle?" Meredith asked whilst Alex and Cristina were trying to pretend they weren't laughing.

"Godfather, but I use the term for all intensive purposes. He is my father's best friend and the two of them are like brothers not to mention I've known Derek Shepherd everyday of my life."

"So you really are Sloan's child." Cristina asked.

"Child no, spawn or bastard yes. I know it's hard to believe but yes Mark Sloan has unfortunately reproduce and sadly for myself I am that. It's something that I wouldn't wish on anyone else as I sure as hell would prefer not to be related or look like him." Ella replied as she bent down and placed her bag back on the bag in order to locate her toothbrush.

"You really do look like Sloan." Alex noted.

"I know." Ella said with a sigh as she went into the bathroom to go brush her teeth, making sure to avoid looking in the mirror because the older she got the more, she tended to look like her father. Except for her eyes, those were one of the few things that Ella didn't get form Mark instead she inherited her mother's green eyes and her aunt's temper.

"So if you're being treated for exhaustion and malnutrition then why are you on the surgical wing?" Izzie asked once Ella had come out of the bathroom.

"I told you not to look at my chart, it's none of your damn business why I'm here! If I wanted you to know then I would have told you myself!" Ella retorted snatching her chart out of Izzie's hands before tossing it on to the bed. That was the one thing she hated about doctors, they were too damn nosy and had no sense of boundaries. Especially surgeons.

"Because I wanted to keep an eye on her." Derek said strolling into the room with a bright smile on his face as he made his way over to Ella and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Good morning sweetheart, I brought you something to snack on."

"Uncle Derek, I'm not that five year old girl who used to beg you to cut up my apples anymore." Ella replied taking the offered apple slices and starting to eat them.

"I know your not, how are you feeling?" Derek asked.

"Still tired." Ella wearily replied.

"I see you've all met my niece Ella and discovered that she is not a surgical patient." Derek said turning to address the others. "So what are you all doing?"

Ella shrugged her good shoulder. "Nothing much, just discussing the absurdity that Mark Sloan is a parent. But then again he isn't, he's the guy who happened to knock my mother up."

The others all laugh but quickly shut up when Derek shot them a look and they all slither out of the room. "Ella…"

"What? It's the truth, Mark accidently knocked mom up and that's the only reason why I'm here. I was an unplanned accident which should have never happened and we all know it." Ella bluntly put.

"That may be true but Mark loves you."

"No he doesn't."

"Yes he does and you want to know how I know that? Because I know him, it's the same way I know that you love him despite you pretending to hate him." Derek stated.

"I'm not pretending, I do hate him. I have every right to hate him as not only is Mark a bad man but also a bad father." Ella retorted.

"Hitler was a bad man, your father is… very flawed but that doesn't make him a bad person Ella."

"How long do I have to be here? Because I'd appreciate people not coming over to stare at me because the biggest womanizer in this state just so happens to be my father. But back to my point can I leave hear? Despite having several doctors in the family I try not to spend much time in hospitals." Ella asked.

"Dr Hudson's going to want to come and speak to you and Mark before you can be discharged, so it may be a couple of hours."

Ella frowned, her day was just getting even worse with each passing minute. "That is just great, I only wanted to be in this hospital for an hour tops and now it's almost been ten hours. I thought I'd get my passport and then leave and be on my way to New York but I'm stuck in Seattle of all places. Not trying to sound like a spoilt and materialistic brat but how on earth do I go from living in Manhattan to then Minnesota and now Seattle?"

"Seattle's a nice place, you'll grow to like it."

"Can we get something to eat, I'm hungry now." Ella asked moving things along, she wasn't ready to deal with this whole living in Seattle whilst trying to sort out her astronomical issues with her incompetent father crap.

"I'm glad to hear that, we can go to the cafeteria to grab something to eat and perhaps Mark can join us." Derek stated.

"And where is my wondrous father now?" Ella asked. "No wait let me guess… he ran for the mountains as soon as I fell asleep? Or he's dumped me on you whilst he's flown back to New York?"

"No actually, last time I check he was on his way to get some sleep and that was round about 6. I told him to go get some sleep in a on call room, he was up half the night working and checking on you. He didn't want to leave you unless he had to; Mark was there when you woke about round 2am screaming for Sabrina because you were having some kind of nightmare. You won't remember as he had the nurses give you something to help you sleep." Derek informed Ella, who found that very hard to believe as the man was content on ignoring her existence for the past two years. She doubted that would have drastically changed in the space of one single night.

"That doesn't sound like Mark." Ella said as she grabbed her shoes from her bag.

"You used to call him dad." Uncle Derek noted.

"I used to do a lot of things that I don't do now like suck my thumb and believe in Santa and the bloody boogeyman!" Ella snapped, she was really getting annoyed about the whole not calling Mark dad thing. To her Mark had lost the right to be called or acknowledged as her dad after what he did to her, she could justify calling him Mark as he wasn't her dad to her, he was just her father. And that was on a good day, on a bad day he was referred to the sperm donor who stuck around.

"Ella…"

"He's not my dad! So can we just drop it already?" Ella sighed in exasperation and Derek nodded as he bent down to tie up Ella's laces and after that he helped her put on a blue hoody. The two of them walked around the hospital for a while and Derek gave Ella a quick tour of the hospital where she got to meet several people like Dr. Bailey and Dr. Webber. Once they finally arrived at the cafeteria Ella's stomach dropped when she saw Mark there waiting for them with orange juice and bagels.

"Morning all." Mark begins and handed Ella what looked suspiciously like a cinnamon bagel.

Ella looked at the bagel held out in front of her and turned to Derek who noticed this as well and instead handed Ella his sesame seed bagel and took the one in Mark's hand who seemed confused at the exchange. "Ella's allergic to cinnamon."

"Since when?" Mark asked.

"Since I was four jackass, maybe if you spent less time screwing around and more time with the child you stupidly brought into the world then you would know things like this." Ella retorted, she this as more proof that she shouldn't be here if Mark was handing her food that could kill her.

"Ella…" Derek began.

"No! I'm not doing this, I'm not going to sit here and pretend to play happy families with the two of you as we are the furthest thing away from being a family or happy. When I agreed to stay here it wasn't so we could be a family I'm only staying here to protect my family – the people who Mark tore me away from to send me away from finding out the truth about where I've been the last two years. I'm broken. As in smashed into a thousand pieces and it's not going to be fixed over night and over bagels just because Mark stayed by my bedside because he feels something that somewhat resembles guilt over his actions!" Ella snapped getting up and walking out of the cafeteria, she wondered through the hospital for a while managing to eat her bagel with one hand until she entered the stairwell to get come peace and quiet.

"Ella! There you are, we've been looking all over the place for you!" A voice says and Ella looks up to see Meredith come down the stairs and Ella frowned before glancing at her watch. It seemed like a good couple of hours had passed.

"Sorry I must have fallen asleep for a while, I don't really remember much..." Ella replied letting out a loud yawn.

"It's probably the exhaustion, we should get you back to your room so you can rest for a while."

Ella shook her head. "No thanks, I don't feel like going back and talking to Derek or Mark at the moment. I can just see the two of them lecturing me about how I'm supposed to be in bed and listen to what Dr. Hudson said. I haven't seen either of them in two years and yet they feel they can boss me around."

"How comes? Do you live with your mother?" Meredith asked

"No, my mom died two and a half years ago and so I lived with Mark after that until everything happened and he shipped me off to boarding school. Been there ever since up until yesterday morning when I ran away and came here." Ella replied.

"Everything happened? What happened?"

"The whole Derek/Addison/Mark love triangle drama I would have thought Uncle Derek would have told you seeing as you're seeing each other and my Aunt Addie worked here up until a few months ago…" Ella explained.

"Oh that… he did, but we're not seeing each other anymore." Meredith replied.

Awkward, Ella immediately thought. "Sorry… my mouth doesn't really think these days, it just goes off."

"It's fine." Meredith assured Ella before changing the subject. "Your uncle thinks we both have a lot in common."

"Like what?" Ella asked very skeptical about anything that her and Meredith would have in common except from Derek but it turns out that they did. We both had had parents who were surgeons – her mother and Mark who both turned out to be crappy parents. They also had the dead mom and the deadbeat dad thing in common. The two of them sat there and talked for a while and for Ella it felt really good to talk to someone who could to relate about things that she had gone through."

"You know we should probably get back… I have patients to check on and your dad and Derek are probably still freaking out about where you are."

"I guess…" Ella wearily replied, to be honest she didn't want to go back but she was feeling a bit tired and hungry.

"Look I wouldn't worry about a thing, Derek seems to really care about you so I doubt he would shout at you and it sounds like Mark is trying to get back into your good graces." Meredith said as she helped Ella up.

"You sound awfully optimistic and don't be offended by this but you don't seem like the type to be all smiles and rainbows." Ella said and Meredith smiled. When the two of them returned to the surgical floor and walked into her room Ella saw Derek, Mark and Dr. Hudson were all there waiting.

"Ella! Thank god where have you been? We've been worried sick." Derek told her but Ella ignored him in favor of climbing back onto her bed.

"So when exactly can I leave here?" Ella asked turning her attention to Dr. Hudson.

"Ella… like I was telling Dr. Sloan and Dr. Shepherd, we're going to move from the surgical ward to the internal medicine department. We want to keep you in until you've gained about two pounds, because at the moment we're concerned about you being underweight and the pressure it's putting on your body." Dr. Hudson said scratching his goatee.

"Seriously? Just give me some loads of food and I'll put the weight on right now." Ella asked hoping that Dr. Hudson was in fact joking.

"You can't just binge on food Ella, that's not how it works." Dr. Hudson tells me.

"Then forget it… I'm not staying here another day, so you either discharge me today or I won't eat. Period." Ella retorted and seconds later Derek sat down on her bed and took Ella's hand in his own.

"Ella I know you don't want to stay here but Dr. Hudson thinks that's best and if you refuse to eat, we can get consent to have you be fed through a tube. As Mark is your dad he can give consent in place of you, if Dr. Hudson thinks you are unable to make the right decisions."

"Are you not going to say anything to this Mark?" Ella demanded as she took her hand away from Derek. "It's starting to sound like your all talking to someone with an eating disorder which I don't. Dislocated shoulder, exhaustion, malnutrition and bruises yes but no eating disorder. The reason why I'm ten pound sunder weight is because at that hellhole you dumped me in, the kids took my food and put things in it. So I didn't eat my three meals a day most of the time but that is not my fault, it's yours Mark! This would have never had happen if you never sent me there! So for once in your god damn life do the right thing!"

"Ella…"

Knowing where this was leading and not liking that answer Ella slid off the bed and started looking for her belongings. "Ella… what are you doing?" Meredith asks as Ella stuffed everything back into her bag and zipped it up.

"What does it look like? I'm going home, I can't stay here when you all think I have some kind of eating disorder. If I have to hitch hike across the entire country to get to New York then I will because I am sure as hell not staying here a moment longer!" Ella replied as she picked up her bag and made her way towards her door.

Dr. Hudson stepped in my way of the door. "Miss Sloan, I can and will have you sedated if you attempt to leave this room or this hospital."

"Go ahead and try to stop me. I may only have one functioning arm but I've taken a few self defence classes and my grandfather is a retired cop so I knew a few things and I reckon I can take you down quite easily." Ella warned.

"Ella, can we just talk about this…" Derek began and it gave Ella an idea so she turned around and made her way over to him before snatching his cell phone out of his lab coat pocket.

"What are you doing now Ella?" Mark questioned.

"I'm tired of talking to you all so I'm calling Aunt Star for help, you won't listen to me but I know that she will. The second I tell her what went on at Brewster's and what you're trying to do to me here, she'll be on the first plane to Seattle. I'm pretty sure, no I can guarantee she can argue that you haven't been acting in my best interest these last few years Mark and get a court order." Ella threatened knowing that she could start crying pretty soon despite the fact she hadn't cried in two years. She knew that this could be the only possible thing to save her as she knew for a fact that Mark was scared of her Aunt Star who not only hated Mark with a passion but worked as an Assistant District Attorney in the DA's office back in New York. "I'm pretty sure she could get a couple of child endangerment and neglect charges to stick and you could lose your license over that…"

Mark didn't say anything for a few minutes and the atmosphere in the room gets really tense and Ella just continued to glare at him. "Dr. Hudson go get the forms, I'm discharging Ella as of right now."

"Mark… you can't be serious. "Derek begins. "Ella needs to stay in the hospital, you can't cave into the threats of your own daughter.

"Derek I'm not arguing about this, she is my child not yours!" Mark yells.

The two of them continue to argue in front on Ella until Meredith made them both leave, Ella stayed in her room holding on tightly to Derek's phone just incase the two of them came back. After a few minutes it became apparent that despite Mark caving into her demands he wasn't going to cave into Derek's as Dr. Hudson left. Ella found out from Meredith who came back in, that there were conditions made to her leaving the hospital early. Ella have to come in every two days for a check up in the hospital clinic until I've gained the ten pounds needed.

Once this had been sorted and Ella had her bags and was ready to go she walked out the hospital room where both Derek and Mark were waiting for her. Neither of them said anything but Mark took Ella's bag and the three of them took the elevator to the ground floor and Derek walked with them to the hospital entrance and only then did Ella return his cell phone.

"I only want what's best for you Ella." Derek told her and attempted to hug Ella who just pushed him away instead.

"It's been two years Uncle Derek, you have no idea what is best for me anymore, none of you do." Ella snarled walking away and waiting for Mark to hurry up and say goodbye to Derek. Once he had Mark came over and opened his passenger side for Ella. At that moment she could have said thank you for everything but she was pissed at him even more so than usual but she was grateful that he had something for once that she stood on her tip toes and gave him a pat on the head. It wasn't much but it was a start.


	3. Chapter 3

_"I know hate is a strong word and everything, but its okay: we're teenagers." _

_Cecily von Ziegesar_

Mark drove Ella to a fancy hotel in town called the Archfield and throughout the journey neither of them had said anything and it eerily reminded Ella of their last car journey together. It was when Mark had driven her to the airport and stuck her on that damn plane. Ella didn't like thinking about that so she tried to focus on something else. When they arrived at the hotel Mark checked Ella into a suite on the same floor as his and once they got to the room, the two of them stood there rather awkwardly. "Ella you hungry?"

"I could eat." Ella said narrowing her eyes, she wasn't sure how to decipher that given the whole eating disaster incident earlier. But right now trying to guess if there was as second meaning behind Mark's question required too much energy. So she got Mark to order her a soup from room service and once that was over the two of them sat in silence until Ella's soup arrived and she sat there and ate whilst Mark just looked at her until she finished.

"Kiddo we need to talk and by that I mean talk, not shouting." Mark began.

Ella frowned at the term. Kiddo. _Kiddo?_ Mark hadn't called her that in two years, it made Ella feel _almost_ nostalgic. Until she realized the last time he called her that was after she caught him with Aunt Addison and he was trying in vain to convince her not to tell Derek. "If I want to yell than I'll yell all I like but whatever, go ahead and purge whatever it is Uncle Derek wants you to say to me. I know it's something to do with you apparently being sorry about everything and how you understand I'm mad and you'll promise to make everything better because you're my dad and you love me. I won't believe you though."

"Why's that?"

"I never believe a word that comes out of your mouth. It saves for less disappointment on my part but please go on." Ella said as she kicked off her shoes.

"I know you're angry about everything that's happened and you have every right to be upset –" Mark begins.

Ella rolled her eyes at this, it was almost if Mark is giving her permission. "Really? Well thank you for telling me that I have the right to be angry Mark because these last couple of years, I wasn't sure if I was allowed to, I thought that I had to ask your permission but that was kind of hard seeing as you were intent of ignoring me for the last two years."

"Are you going to let me talk?" Mark questioned.

"You never said anything about hearing you out or me not being able to commentate on this amusing father and daughter talk."

"If you'd let me explain –" Mark continued and the thought of Mark giving her some lame ass excuse about why he sent her away made Ella want to throttle his neck so instead she chose to interrupt him again.

"There is no explanation Mark, you took me away from my family and friends without a thought of what it would do to me. I did nothing worth being punished over but you sent me away for trying to tell the truth. I was twelve years old and I had lost my mother five months before when you stuck me on that plane to a place that I had never been to in my life. I was scared out of my wits; I cried every night for months and was completely alone with no idea what was going. All so you could carry on with Addison, you were being completely selfish and I deserved better from you."

"I know it was, which is why I want to fix things that's why I want you to stay here in Seattle." Mark told Ella.

"Like I said Mark I won't believe a word of this and Seattle isn't my home Mark, New York is. The only reason why you want me to stay here is because Uncle Derek will stop being mad at you if I do. You would have been content if these last twenty four would have never happened."

"You don't know that."

"I do, I only came for money and my passport, I'm not denying that… there was no way I was taking a coach across the whole country although seeing you was not part of my plan. I was going to get Uncle Derek to do it all for me."

"Maybe… there is some part of you that decided to stay here in Seattle, so that you could save us. Being here in Seattle, might be good for you… for the both us." Mark said and Ella thought it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard in life.

Ella shook her head. "I doubt it. This is us you're talking about but that doesn't mean this isn't a chance and attempt to make the magnitude of your mistakes right or at least attempt to. But if you think I'll make this easy for you then you are sorely mistaken because after these last two years I don't owe you a single thing. If anything you owe me Mark because I am… very angry."

"I know… I'd thought you'd yell some more." Mark replied.

"I'm too tired to yell but give it some time, once I've had a couple of hours of sleep I'll be back to shouting capacity." Ella said with a pause. "You can't get my forgiveness overnight Mark, you know that right? This peace treaty is only for today seeing as you got me out of the hospital."

"I know." Mark said coming over and patting Ella on the head. "Go get some sleep, if you get hungry later order room service and charge it to my room. Another thing… don't worry about your hair."

"Oh… so there's an upside to the Sweeney Todd job on my hair?" Ella angrily demand as she fingered her hair that Matron barely managed to style into a bob, which just scrapped her shoulders. "Does it not matter that I liked it the way it was?"

"It makes you look more like your mom."

"Really?" Ella managed to choke out, since the day she was born there was no doubt Mark was her father as she looked just like him apart from having my mom's lips and green eyes. So hearing Mark tell her that for once she looked just like her mother made her year.

"Her hair was in a similar style to that when we first met." Mark said and it made Ella feel slightly better about her hair.

"And we all know how that worked out." Ella found herself joking about.

Mark smiles briefly before Ella watch it fall. "Ella, we can't keep avoiding this we have to talk about Brewster's eventually."

The nice warm and fuzzy moment was officially dead and buried six feet under and Ella could feel herself tense up at the mention of that particular name. Today had been hard enough already. "I don't want to talk about it now!"

"Fine. But Derek wants us all to sit down and talk about it and you know that you can't ever avoid it." Mark replied.

"Uncle Derek thinks I have an eating disorder and threatened to stick a tube down my throat to feed me, so he has no opinion. The only person's whose opinion really matters in all of this is mine." Ella retorted

"I'm down the hall if you need anything, I'm not due at work until tomorrow you'll have to come in with me."

Ella just tolled her eyes there was no chance that she was going to let that happen. "Like hell I am Sloan..."


	4. Chapter 4

_"After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person."_

_ Evelyn Waugh_

Ella was absolutely furious to put it lightly when Mark woke up her and dragged her out of the hotel and to the hospital with, she was in such a fowl mood about being up at 5am to get arrive at the hospital in time for Mark's shift at 6 that she actually kicked him. The only upside of the whole thing was that Mark had brought Ella a box of glazed donuts to soothe her bad mood and to keep her quiet. But Ella was still in that much of a pissy mood that she had put Mark on official shoelace duty so that every time she needed her laces to be retied he had to do it. Which is how Ella ended up at the nurses station of the surgical ward and quarter to seven but instead she ended up being ambushed by Derek.

"Ella we need to talk."

Placing her donut box on the table Ella turned and looked at Derek with a frown etched on her face. "Look… I'm going to say this once because in the past thirty-six hours since I've been here it seems like I've done nothing but repeat myself. So Uncle Derek after everything that I've been through neither you nor Mark have the right to tell me what's best for myself such as this whole eating disorder thing… this my body were talking about not yours so you don't have any say about it –"

"Ella, I care about I –"

"Let me finish, Uncle Derek you know I love you and I understand what you're trying to tell me but you abandoned me just like Mark did. It may not have been intentional or in the same manner as Mark but you left me. I get why you did but you were one of the few things that gave me strength to survive when I was away. But when you cut Mark off and came here you cut me off too, nine weeks you went without sending me a single letter after you left New York. I found out what happened from your mom and I know you had a lot going on during that time with your marriage being over. But I was having a hard time too and I needed you more than you'll ever known."

"I am sorry."

That was the first apology Ella had heard since she had arrived in Seattle but it didn't matter. "I want to believe you Uncle Derek because I know you mean it but I can't. Sorry is just not good enough anymore, it's just a five letter word to me."

"I see your charm doesn't work on everyone McDreamy." Dr. Bailey said as she picked up a chart from the desk.

"McDreamy?" Ella frowned in confusion, as she had no idea where the hell that come from?

Bailey clarified. "That's what they call Dr. Shepherd here and they call your dad McSteamy."

"More like McBossyBoots the pair of them." Ella retorted before walking off with her donuts, she was bored out of her goddamn mind, there was nothing for her to do here and yet Mark was insistent on dragging jer here. If this was what she had to look forward to for the rest of the year Ella knew she'd definitely be going home to New York. As she wondered around the hospital for a while until I finally spot Mark coming out of one of the elevators with Callie or rather Dr. Torres, the nice lady who fixed her arm but also slept with Mark. "About time… where the hell have you been?"

"Working Ella, what do you think I've been doing?" Mark replied.

"Don't be a smart ass with me Mark, I'll just kick you again." Ella retorted before turning to Callie. "Donut?"

"How comes Callie gets a donut and I don't?" Mark asked as Callie plucked a donut out of the box.

"Because I don't like you in the slightest not to mention you're an asshole who I'm unfortunately stuck with for the rest of my life and Callie fixed my arm. Now hurry up, I need you tie up my shoelaces." Ella said

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Does it look like I'm kidding? My arm is in a sling and I can barely dress myself let alone tie my shoes and secondly you dragged me here before the crack of dawn. So you're on shoelace duty until my arm is fully functional again. Not to mention your trying to earn my forgiveness so I'd get to it." Ella pointedly stated and mark groaned before bending down to tie Ella's shoelace.

"Dr. Sloan, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd see you kneeling at a woman's feet." A woman with average length blonde hair said as she walks up to us, judging by the dark blue scrubs Ella figured she was an attending. "You may not be as much as an idiot that I took you for."

"I wouldn't get too excited Erica, he's tying up his daughter's shoelaces." Callie explains as Mark got up. "Dr. Erica Hahn meet Ella Sloan."

Dr. Hahn holds out her left hand and Ella shook it with my good one. "So you're Mark's daughter?"

"Sadly." Ella replied with a look of despair before turning back to Mark. "By the way you needed to call Uncle Sam like yesterday. You should have done it the same time you called that school you sent me too that I was no longer returning."

"Why?"

"Well firstly Pops and Nana call me every Thursday evening and so if they call in two days and their told that I'm no longer at my school, they will have a heart attack which is not good. Secondly as your too slow to notice I'm running out of clothes, I went to a boarding school that had uniform so most of my regular clothes are back in New York."

"Right… so why do I have to call Sam?" Mark asked slowly.

"Because when I'm in New York I live with Nana and Pops and I don't want my sixty eight year old grandparents exhausting themselves from packing all my things up so unless you want to talk to Aunt Star and have her threaten to kick your ass for twenty minutes, then I'd call Uncle Sam." Ella said with a sigh.

"Do you have their numbers?"

"Seriously? You don't have any of their numbers? You really are a McAsshole, these people are my family you kind of supposed to keep in contact with them given that I am supposed to be your child." Ella said with a sigh before turning to Hahn and Callie. "See what I have to deal with? I've been here two days and I feel like I've aged twenty years."

"Well they don't exactly like me and they usually contact me when it comes to you." Mark said as he handed his phone over to Ella.

"Can you really blame them? Anyway Uncle Sam's probably at the hospital so I'd call in about an hour but you do realize you called the operator and asked them to connect you to Lennox Hill and then you could have asked to speak to Uncle Sam. I know he'll be pretty busy as the head of cardio but I'm pretty sure he'll be willing to take the time to talk to the father of his niece because I know for a fact that Uncle Sam thinks I'm pretty damn great." Ella quipped.

"Are you talking about Lenox Hill's head of cardio Sam Perry? The same Sam Perry who won the Harper Avery award last year?" Dr. Hahn asked.

Mark reluctantly nodded which caused Ella to smirk whilst her Aunt Star just hated Mark and was content in insulting him any way possible, Uncle Sam made sly jibes at Mark career wise such as how he became head of cardio despite being two years younger than Mark. That was always a sore topic with Mark, which made it a Perry family favourite. "Yes... Sam is Ella's uncle."

Dr. Hahn turned to Ella surprised. "Samuel Perry is your uncle?"

Ella grinned. "Yep… do you know him?"

"We worked together on a few cases in the past, I was in New York last year to work on a triple heart bypass with him last year. I hate to admit it but he's a brilliant surgeon and a good man." Dr. Hahn replied.

"Oh yeah he is… Uncle Sam is great, when Mark finally gets around to calling you should have him mention." Ella added, she was starting to like Dr. Hahn as not only did she seem not too fond of Mark but she liked her Uncle Sam.

"Is that all you need?" Mark asked and that was all Ella needed but as her father was so quick to dismiss her she now decided that she wanted more.

"No I now want your wallet." Ella demanded which caught Mark so off guard that he made some rather unflattering splattering noises. "Shut up before you say something stupid Mark, now your probably working at least a twelve hour shift which I am putting my foot down and telling you I'm not staying here for that amount of time. So you're going to open your wallet like the kind person that we both know your not and your going to give me cash so I can get a taxi back to the hotel. Plus one of those pretty plastic credit cards you have so I can go buy something to entertain myself because my happiness is your most top right priority, right Mark? Along with my forgiveness…"

"Mark I would just do what Ella says." Callie told a rather stunned Mark who slowly opened up his wallet and stuck some cash and into Ella's sling given that she had her hands full.

"Just for that you can have the rest of these." Ella quipped handing Mark her donut box. "Now repeat after me Mark, have fun and enjoy yourself."

"Have fun and enjoy yourself."

Ella snorted over how much of a moron her father was being before walking off and as she made her way over to the elevators to leave she spotted Derek who was sitting down charting something. Starting to feel bad about what she said earlier Ella made her way over and sat down next to him; Derek looked up at Ella briefly but doesn't say anything and she knows he's expecting her to begin. As much as what she was going to say was going to contradict with what she said earlier. "Look I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings…"

"I know that." Derek said not bothering to look up from his chart which caused Ella to frown as if he knew that then why was she getting the silent treatment? Or as silent as Derek Shepherd could get. This means that Derek was upset or mad at her, either of which wasn't good for Ella as he was never upset or angry with me because she was Ella and Derek liked Ella and understood her So it was of vital importance that she got back on his good side.

"I know I've been rather brash and snippy with you since I've gotten here and I'll begrudgingly admit that it's wrong and slightly out of order for me to do that…" Ella began but stopped when she noticed that Derek was still looking at that damn chart. "I'm trying to apologize here Uncle Derek could you least pretend that your interested in what I'm trying to say."

"Okay." Derek replied putting down the chart and looking at Ella.

"I've lost my train of thought… where was I?" Ella sheepishly asked.

"You were attempting to explain your behaviour."

"Oh right… like I was trying to say is that I shouldn't have bit your head off, I know your trying to help but the thing you've got to understand is that I'm not the same girl you once knew. I know that you think you've noticed that and I heard you tell Mark that but Uncle Derek you have no idea how much that place took from me. I'm angrier than I've ever been, I lose my temper very quickly and if you hadn't noticed the swearing is a recent addition to my little arsenal. Most importantly I don't trust people anymore, well I do but not like how I used to. As much as I hate to say this but Mark is my father and he betrayed me in the worst way I couldn't even imagine and that had ramifications. After that and everything that went on in that place I've lost faith in people and the world. Last two years I learnt to depend on myself and survive in my own personal nightmare, I didn't tell the people closet to me until now and that's because I before this all happened I lost someone I very much loved and then I was hurt by someone who I loved. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not used to someone knowing the truth and wanting to help me, I'm used to lying to the people to not only protect them but also myself and having them think everyone was okay when it really wasn't." Ella admitted.

"I know, which is why I tried to tell you earlier that I was going to stop pushing you to do things that you didn't want to and listen better. Mark told me that you didn't want to talk about Brewster's yet so we won't, at least not until your ready to Ella. I want you to be able to trust me enough to come and talk to me about anything." Derek told Ella which stunned her as Derek was the talking kind of person, he liked to talk about things.

"I'm sorry." Ella said.

"So am I." Uncle Derek tells me before handing Ella a book with a bow stuck on it.

Ella removed the bow and saw that the book is about Seattle. "You got me a guide book on Seattle? Thanks…"

"Well you're new in town, so I figured you could use it to figure out how to get around and we could go to some of the places together." Derek and Ella figured that the we part was the two of them and Mark but Ella chose not to say anything about it. "So what are you doing today? Any plans?"

"I just scored some cash from Mark so I'm going to go back to the hotel and sleep for a bit before burning a hole in Mar's credit card. I'm running out of clothes and I'm going to be here for a while so it makes sense. Plus I'm bored stiff here so I'm going to fax Uncle Sam a bunch of stuff I want him to send over, will you remind Mark to call him today?"

"If he doesn't, I'll do it myself." Derek assured her.

"Thank you." Ella replied, giving Derek the most genuine smile she had mustered ever since she had arrived in Seattle.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."_

_ Dr Seuss_

"Ella. Get up, we need to go to the hospital my shift starts in forty minutes."

The docile tones of Mark's annoying voice had quickly become something that Ella did not look forward to hearing in the early hours of the morning, everyday for the last two weeks ever since she arrived in Seattle. Everyday Mark was working he would do this and everyday it just made Ella want to sleep even more, so she just grumbled in an irritated manner at Mark before pulling the cover over her head. "Go away asshole, I'm trying to sleep."

"Kiddo, you need to get up and move!" Mark said to Ella as he pulled the cover off her and immediately the warm and snug comfort of her duvet was gone, replaced with a slight cold breeze which made Ella's toes curl up before glaring at Mark. He was so loud and annoying in the morning and Ella was starting to get sick of it.

"No I don't… I start school today." Ella retorted as she grabbed the duvet back off Mark and tried to settle herself back into the comfy position she had been before he had decided to rudely awaken her.

"How the hell did you manage to enroll yourself in school without me?" Mark demanded and Ella looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was barely half six and already the two of them were yelling at each other; a new personal best for them both,

"Do you remember the beginning of last week? When I told you I needed a telephone, computer, a printer and a fax machine? Did it not enter your tiny brain that I'd have to enroll in a school here since I ran away from the last one? Clearly not as I have to do everything myself because I know you're too stupid to actually do it. So I called Aunt Helen and asked her how to go about it then I filled in the paperwork and forged your signature and emailed the school saying you couldn't make it as you had some important surgery. I had my transcripts sent to them last week, I start…" Ella explained before glancing back over at the clock. "In two hours… I also got this year's tuition back from Brewster's it's in a envelope in my bag."

"Oh." Mark slowly said.

"Yeah… that's what I thought. Thankfully I take after mom when it comes to my organization skills." Ella replied as she sat up and motioned for Mark to hand pass over her sling, as there was no way she was going back to sleep after this. She was wide-awake now.

"You sure you'll be okay going to school? Do you want to talk about it? You don't have to go in if you don't want to." Mark asked as he sat on the edge of the bed and his seemingly genuine concern shocked Ella. But then again Mark had been like this, tiptoeing around Ella and being weirdly nice and supportive ever since Derek suggest Ella go and see a shrink and she flipped out. "–Ella?"

Ella didn't realized she had zoned out she was too busy reliving all the memories of being locked in cupboards and being tripped down the stairs. "Sorry Mark I drifted off… what did you say?"

"I asked whether you're up for this Ella." Mark said and Ella just looked at him, to be honest she wasn't sure if she was given what happened last time bust she couldn't tell Mark that. He'd be all weird about it and things would become more awkward then they already were. It was better for both of them if Ella went to school.

"Yeah I'll be fine Mark, it can't be any worse than the last school you sent me to but if I don't come back tonight then something's happened." Ella joked before realizing that wasn't funny in the slightest and Mark seemed to share that sentiment so Ella decided to fiddle with her sling instead.

"Anything happens, just call me." Mark told Ella as he patted her on the head. "Why don't you come over to the hospital once school is over and we can have something to eat?"

"I'd like that." Ella replied giving Mark a small smile, given that he was being full of surprises today she decided that she would reward him and forgive his previous stupidity and play nice today. Ella watched as Mark smiled right back at her with the same smile as hers and got up off the bed and surveyed the room. Which she had to admit was a complete mess as all her boxes from New York were all over the place plus all the stuff she had brought here in Seattle. "Don't even bring up the mess, I'm working on it… there's only so much I can do with one arm."

"Okay, well I'll see you later." Mark told Ella as he made his way over toward the door.

"Hey! I need money for lunch and you might want to take that check for forty grand with you." Ella called out and pointed to her bag that was sitting on a dresser and Mark stopped and grabbed the envelope before replacing it with some cash.

"Later kiddo."

Ella sat there for a while after Mark left, not doing anything in particular excepting sitting on her bed and occasionally playing with her sling. She had the damn thing on for two weeks already and according to Mark she wasn't allowed to take it off for another six weeks much to Ella's irritation. After a while Ella decided to do the sensible thing and ordered breakfast, but an hour and fifteen minutes it turns out that breakfast wasn't such a good idea as she stumbled out of the bathroom after throwing up her entire breakfast. Twice. As much as Ella hated to admit this but she was thinking that Mark may have been right about skipping school. The way Ella was going it might just be a good idea to skip it for the rest of the year until she started high school.

But that wouldn't solve anything and she refused to let my time at a certain hellhole reduce her into some weak fumbling person. So she decided to place a call to New York and get a pep talk by the only people who she deemed better than Uncle Derek to hand out advice.

"Hello, Perry residence?" a female voice asks after the phone rings for like 10,000 times.

"Nana? It's me Ella…"

"Ella! How lovely to hear from you, just give me a moment to put you on loudspeaker and call your grandpa!" Beatrice Perry squeaked in the excited way grandparents do. "Jeff, come quickly! Ella's on the phone!" I hear her say in the background.

"You're calling awfully early, sweetpea. Is something wrong?" Jeffrey Perry asked over the phone.

"Not really, it's just… that I'm starting my new school today and I'm feeling nervous. I've already thrown up twice." Ella admitted as she knew that was a bad idea as soon as the words came out of her mouth because being the mother hen Nana Perry was, she started freaking out.

"You've been sick? Have you called Mark? Do you need to go to the hospital?" Nana demands, my grandmother was one of those compulsive worriers but it was understandable seeing as Pops was a cop for thirty-five years before he decided to take retirement.

"Mark's at work but I'm fine Nana, it was a while ago and I think it was just the nerves. I'm sure my stomach's settled." Ella replied carefully as if she wasn't careful that whole eating disorder thing could come up again.

"If your sure…" Beatrice slowly said but was soon interrupted by her husband's laugh.

"Beatrice… I'm sure Ella is capable enough to decide whether or not she needs to go to the hospital. With father and two uncles for doctors she's probably picked up some medical knowledge."

"I guess… now tell us about this school of yours Ella. Is it in a good neighborhood and does it have good facilities?" Beatrice questioned.

"Mark found a really good school, it's not too far from where we live and he's sat down and talked with the principal already." Ella lied as there was no way she could tell her grandparents that she forged Mark's signature on several important documents given that her grandfather was a retired Inspector with the NYPD. Plus she hadn't even told them about her shoulder or Brewster's seeing as the news would probably kill them, so Ella was keeping quiet about anything that might cause them any amount of stress.

"Well that's good… now I have to run now Ella but promise you'll call us later and tells how school went."

"I will, I love you Nana."

"I love you too Ella." Beatrice replied.

"Okay sweetpea it's just you and me now, grandma's gone to one of her clubs. So is there anything you want to talk about?" Jeff asked.

"I'm just worried about making the whole making friends part, last couple of years I've made friends only to leave them to go somewhere else and each time it doesn't get easier." Ella said, part of this was a lie seeing as she had no friends at the hellhole of a boarding school she attended but mainly Ella was talking about all the friends she left in New York and all the ones she may leave if this whole year in Seattle thing doesn't work out. Although this was more than the friends bit, Ella was worried that things might be the same as they were at Brewster's despite constantly reminding herself that she was in a different place and a different school. Hell she had even switched from private school and went to public schooling to avoid a repeat of what happened.

"That's understandable but now you have all these gadgets to stay in touch with your friends, so when you come home to visit you won't miss them as much. So I would go into that new school of yours and not worry about a thing just think of the positives that come with starting a new school and making friends." Jeff assured Ella. "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."

"Who said that?" Ella asked as her grandfather loved quoting things be it from people, books, films or even himself.

"Charles R. Swindoll, he's a pastor and an author but like I was saying sweetpea, don't worry so much just embrace this new beginning, be happy and safe." Jess said."

"I will."

"Now considering the time difference between New York and Seattle I presume that you have to leave soon. So I'll say one more thing to you." Jeff began and Ella couldn't help but smile down the phone, as she knew what he was going to say. It was kind of Derek's it's beautiful day to save lives speech/ quote thing except that it belongs to A.A Milne. But Ella's great grandfather Fitzgerald Perry used to read Winnie the Pooh and Jeff always liked that part so he often told his children

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

"I promise Pops." Ella replied.

"Have a good day sweetpea, remember that we love you and to call us later."

Ella bid her grandfather goodbye and put down the phone, letting out a loud sigh before getting up off her bed and picking up her bag. She was feeling slightly better after her conversation with her grandparents but not much. Unlike her grandparents, she wasn't an optimist anymore and she had a feeling that today was going to be the beginning of the end. Ella prayed for her grandfather to be right about this one otherwise she might have to consider other options like jumping off the space needle.


	6. Chapter 6

_"In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk." _

_Robert Kiyosaki_

It was different. Completely different than anything Ella had expected but not the typical difference you'd expect from transferring to a public from a private school. It was hard for Ella to explain but there was something in the environment that was kind of welcoming? It was weird or maybe Ella was over thinking things and being too paranoid for her own good. All that time at Brewster's had got her thinking that the whole world was a dark and corrupted place. Although what kind of irked was that she had to change schools halfway through the years and the fact that it was middle school. But on the upside she'd be done in about four months. Despite what her grandfather had told her Ella kept her head down most of the day, no matter how welcoming this place was she just didn't feel comfortable walking up to people and engaging them in conversation. Whilst she was working on her trust issues with Mark, being with kids her own age was something very different. Which was rather a bad idea when it came to lunch as Ella walked around the cafeteria trying to find somewhere to sit, looking around there was just a sea of people, completely different from what I was used to and it was rather daunting.

"Hey new kid!" A voice called out and looking to her left Ella saw three kids who looked kind of familiar and one of the two boys was motioning for her to come over. "You can join us."

Ella slowly made her way over, careful of her lunch try which she was carrying in one hand due to her arm not to mention that her bag was being supported on that same arm. So it was kind of a hard task but somehow she managed it and Ella sat down and joined the two boys and one girl at their table. "Thanks, I'm really bad at the new kid thing…"

"That's understandable, I was the new kid two years ago." The boy who called Ella over said, before Ella couldn't get a good look at him but now she could see that he had short brown hair, grey eyes and a really friendly smile. Ella recalled seeing him in at least in one of her classes this morning. "I'm Alfie Mason and this is Poppy Messing and Luke Frazier."

Alfie motioned to the girl with shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes and to the boy with short black curly hair and brown eyes. "Nice to meet you I'm Ella…"

"You have a surname to go with that Ella?" Luke asked.

"Perry… I mean Sloan, um…" Ella bumbled and she frowned, she couldn't believe she was acting like an idiot and somehow managing to mix up her own damn name. She was very much aware of what her own name yet she seemed to be unable to say. This wasn't going well at all.

"Perry-Sloan?" Poppy offered.

Ella shook her head and managed to compose herself. "No it's definitely Sloan, I've just been going by Perry the last couple of years so it's just taking a while to readjust to going by my actual surname."

"So… Ella Sloan, where have you joined us from?" Luke asked.

"Technically New York but I've been away at this boarding school in Minnesota these last two years, this place called Brewster's." Ella quickly said, hoping to gloss over it but apparently Luke was fast enough to catch that.

"You went to Brewster's Academy?" Luke questioned in surprise and Ella nodded, she wasn't surprised that he had heard of it after all it was a place was you could send your little brain box children and they'd get into an ivy league school of their choice.

Ella reluctantly nodded. "Trust me… it's not all that it's cracked up to be."

"So Ella… what brings you to Seattle? You've transferred in pretty late."

"Don't be so nosy Alfie!" Poppy chided. "You don't have to tell us anything Ella."

"It's fine, I'm just not used to people taking an interest in me or my life that's all. I moved here because me being away at boarding school wasn't working anymore and my father had moved up here from New York not long after I had left for school." Ella said somewhat lying, but finding that she could make her messed up little life sound quite normal. Here Ella could fit in perhaps and even make friends, no longer being the girl that everyone picked. She had a chance to be happy, if her past wasn't her haunting her every waking moment.

"If you don't mind me asking what happened to your arm?" Poppy asked.

"Oh… yeah, I was hit by a car shortly after I arrived in Seattle, I assumed it was some welcoming committee, in New York you'd get a mouthful of abuse or mugged but here in Seattle you get hit by cars. It's quite interesting." Ella joked which caused the others to laugh much to her surprise as people didn't tend to find her funny.

"So how you getting used to Seattle?" Luke questioned.

"Okay, the fact that it's a major metropolitan city gets a thumbs up from me. I'm a city girl born and bred so going to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere was hard to adjust to so I'm glad to be back in a city – it may not be Manhattan but I'll take anything." Ella replied with a small smile, although she had major trust issues with people there was something about Luke, Alfie and Poppy that made Ella trust them. They were the only people her age who had been nice to her in years as pathetic as that sounded. Something about them just seemed right.

"–Earth to Sloan." Alfie said lightly tapping Ella's skull.

Ella felt her cheeks twinge pink. "Sorry, I've been doing that a lot recently.

"Looks like new girl is a dreamer! The New York dreamer!" Luke joked.

Alfie chuckled. "That sounds like a newspaper!"

"I think not, that is the one thing I'm sure on I see myself more as a realist or a pessimist depending on what ways you look at things." Ella noted as she glanced down at her tray briefly.

"Aww that's so sweet but anyway what are your plans for after school?" Luke asked.

Ella looked at the three of them shocked, people had never asked her if she wanted to go with them somewhere and on her first day of school as well. Ella's gut instinct was telling her to make an excuse such as the appointment at the clinic she today but then she'd remembered what her grandfather had told her about new beginnings and Ella realized that if she kept letting everything that happened to her interfere with her new life in Seattle now. Ella realized all her fears and weariness could make her miss out on making some new friends and Luke, Alfie and Poppy seemed like really nice people. "I have an appointment but it's no big deal I can push it back for later, why?"

Poppy smiled a bright smile at Ella. "Well we wanted to know if you'd like to hang out with after school and do something?"

"Seriously? You guys have just met me and you want to hang out with me?" Ella asked skeptically.

"Yeah… You seem pretty cool and don't take any offence to this Ella but having you in our group and as our friend means that Poppy won't be the spare wheel anymore!" Luke replied to which Poppy punched him in the arm.

"What Mr. Dimwit is trying to say for all of us is that we want you to be your friend Ella and we get that starting over in a new place must be hard… so what do you say? Come out with us? We won't be out for too long" Poppy said.

Ella paused for a moment before finally smiling. "Sure, why not?"

Alfie patted Ella's good shoulder "Good choice Sloan, we'll show you how we do things on the west coast besides we feel obligated to as citizens of our fair Seattle to show you a good time since your welcoming party obviously went very wrong."


	7. Chapter 7

_"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." _

_Douglas Adams_

For once in god knows how long Ella was actually happy in some capacity, after another long agonizing month her shoulder was apparently healed, which meant she could finally use her arm again and stop wasting Mark's money to pay her friends $20 a pop to tie up my laces. But she had to come to the hospital to have it looked over just in case as Luke accidently pushed Ella into a wall and she fell on that shoulder and it sort of hurt. Another plus in Ella's life apart from the fact her arm was okay for the most part and she had friends for the first time in years was that her hair was starting to grow back. But things with Mark and her had gone down hill again since he stood Ella up for the meal they were supposed to have on her first day of school. There was an argument and Ella had been on avoidance duty and apparently so was Mark as Ella hadn't seen him since, the only trace of Mark was the money he'd leave in Ella's hotel room before he went to work. Ella was hoping that she could get in and out of the hospital without running into Mark.

"Ella! I haven't see you around lately, I ran into Dr. Hudson today and he told me that you've put on the ten pounds you needed to. Why didn't you tell me? I would have taken you out to dinner to celebrate but I have brought you something instead." Derek told Ella moments after she ran smack bang into him in her haste to get out of the hospital.

"Yeah." Ella said apologetically before looking around, it would only be a matter of time before Mark came around but the gift kept her put. "Do you have time to talk or do you have patients or a surgery to attend?"

"I always have time for my goddaughter." Derek replied leading Ella over to the waiting area chairs so she could fill him in on what's been going on in her life recently and how she was adjusting to the whole moving to Seattle situation. "What about school and where you're living?"

"School's okay but I've managed to make some really good friends, so I'm happy right now. As for living arrangements I'm still at the Archfield at the moment…"

"Seriously? The Archfield…"

"Yeah, for the meantime that's what Mark says but at least I have my own suite." Ella said but Derek still gave her a look that said he disapproved about the entire situation. "Don't give me that look there's no way I'm staying in the same suite as Casanova, it's better for my mental well being this way."

"Ella, what are you doing here?"

Looking up Ella saw Mark and frowned, he was the last person she wanted to see and had made a conscious effort to avoid him, which had been working up until now. "I came to see Callie, I fell on my shoulder today and now it's kind of sore. I don't think it popped back out again but I just need her to check it over."

"Oh, right." Mark slowly said.

"Mark can I have a word with you?" Derek asks standing up and Ella watched as they immediately began a very quiet argument. Ella sat there watching not knowing if to intervene or not. "Mark, she is child! Ella should not be living in a hotel suite."

"How I raise my daughter is none of your business Derek!" Mark hissed.

"Yes it is, especially when you're not even doing a proper job of it" Derek and Ella actually winced at it given that was a low blow and they all knew it. Occasionally Ella made little snide comments about Mark's parenting abilities and had called him a bad father on more than one occasion but she cut him a lot of slack given the fact he had stepped up when her mom had died, she knew he was trying albeit very badly in his way of child rearing.

Ella sighed and got up and walked over to Mark and Derek she had to put a stop to this. "Look can we not to this today? As much as insulting Mark is a highlight of my week I just want to get my arm looked at and then go do something relaxing."

"Sure thing Ella, let me come with you and then I can give you your present." Derek said, shooting Mark a rather dirty look before leaving with Ella to go find Callie who checked over Ella's arm and assured her it was fine but warned Ella to be more careful. Unfortunately for Ella, Derek got paged for a consult and as such Ella had to wait around for him to finish in order to get her gift, so she sat herself down to wait and Mark decided to wait with Ella when he saw her sitting alone.

"How's your arm?" Mark asked.

"Fine, I just have to be more careful." Ella curtly replied.

"How's school?"

Ella raised an eyebrow in surprise at the question as Mark was acting rather out of character given that he was actually asking about her life as if he cared. "It's okay, but why the interest all of a sudden?"

"Aren't parents supposed to an interest in their kids lives?" Mark replied but Ella couldn't help but note that Mark was no normal parent but she didn't saw this out loud as she was trying hard to have some kind of self-restraint. Although she quickly forgot about this when Derek came back carrying a large round blue box with a black ribbon.

"Is that for me?"

"Yes it is." Derek replied handing over the box to Ella who carefully took it and looked at it for a moment, unsure of whether to open it because the box itself was so pretty. But with some prompting from Derek, Ella pulled off the ribbon and opened the box and when she saw what was inside she was pretty stunned.

"Wow…"

"I take it you like them?" Derek asked.

Ella looked at the skates in her hand before looking at Derek. Like them? She loved them, putting the box and the skates to the side Ella got up and hugged Derek. "Of course I do! Thank you so much!"

Laughing Derek kissed the top of Ella's head. "That's not it, I've also booked you some private practice time every Thursday between 5 and 6 for the next six months… it's at that rink that we saw that hockey match at a few weeks ago."

"Thank you so much! It's going to be a pain in the ass to break these in but so worth it!" Ella happily squealed.

"Language Ella." Derek warned but even though Ella's use of slightly inappropriate language bugged him, he couldn't hide the smile on his face.

"Whatever, I'm too happy to care! Thank you Uncle Derek!" Ella said hugging Derek once again.

"I didn't know you skated…" Mark stated.

In the space of a second Mark flooded Ella's parade completely and Ella opened her mouth to speak but shook his head at her before turning to Mark. "Ella's been skating for years now Mark, she took it up just after Sabrina was diagnosed. Sabrina thought that Ella needed a some kind of hobby to help her cope so we signed her up for ice skating lessons and she's been skating ever since…"

It now becomes awkward between the three of them since Derek dropped the m word bomb. There were some major issues concerning Ella, her mother and Mark. Ella's mom died two and half years ago shortly after Ella had turned twelve; she was thirty-eight years old and died from lung cancer despite never smoking a cigarette in her life. "You remember her don't you Mark? Sabrina Perry? She was 5'8 and stunningly beautiful, with long brown hair that trailed down her back, bright green eyes and dimples in her cheek. She was the loveliest person you could have met and she died two years ago and about thirteen years before that when you were twenty, you happened to accidently knock her up."

"I remember her." Mark softly said.

"That's a surprise considering the amount of women you go through in a month, I was sure you wouldn't remember her name or even her face despite the fact you had a child with her." Ella spat with as much venom as she could muster and judging by Mark's reaction to this statement, Ella thought she pissed him off royally. Who knew her dead mother was a trigger for him?

"Your mother and I may not have been together but don't assume what I remember about her. She was the mother of my child, she was as much in my life as I was in hers. I was there at the end along with you and her memory means just as much to me as it does to you."

Ella rolled her eyes, there was no way Mark thought anything about her mom apart from being the women who ruined his life. "I highly doubt that but what is a clear difference between you and mom is the concept of parenting. Because I know for a fact that mom never had her best friend constantly telling her how to look after me unlike a certain person I know."

"You know what Ella, I can't deal with you today so just go home." Mark stated.

The fact that Mark was trying to go all parental unit on Ella and attempt to tell her what to do was a complete joke and she couldn't help but snort in amusement as she picked up her bag and the box containing her new skates. "Firstly when have you ever dealt with me? Because I for one have no memory of you ever doing such as thing as you either get someone else to deal with me or you just send me away and secondly I can't go home because I live in a hotel which Uncle Derek pointed out to you less than an hour ago. I don't have a home here Mark. But whatever, I'm just grateful that in less than a year I will never have to see you again."

"Look, I think we all –" Derek began.

"–Derek stay out of this, it's between me and the kid!" Mark retorted.

Kid? Ella was actually furious by this as since when was she demoted from name status but if Mark wanted to go down the name calling road she was more than happy to throw in a couple McAsshole's amongst other names but now not so much, she wanted to go to the hotel. "Ignore him Uncle Derek… but thanks for the skates and I'll see you on Thursday, right?"


	8. Chapter 8

_"It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing." _

_Lemony Snicket_

Mark hadn't been around in the past two days so Ella reckoned he was still majorly pissed off with her about the mom thing. Which she still had no clue about seeing as him and her mom were only together for a couple of months and by that Ella meant sleeping together and Mark didn't seem like the person to get hung up on a relationship that ended over fourteen years ago. But she didn't let that bug her, the way Ella saw things was that she was the titanic and Mark was that iceberg that ruined everything. So she was setting my course as far away as she could possible get away from the iceberg, Ella liked my friends and Seattle was growing more on her day by day. It could never replace New York but she could see it as somewhere to call home.

"I think… you need to apologize to Mark about what happened the other day at the hospital, what you said kind of hurt his feelings."

"Don't make me laugh Uncle Derek, Mark doesn't have any feelings just primal drives." Ella stated with a scoff as she slowly skate around the ring, her and Derek were at the ice-rink so Ella could get in some practice and break in her new skates which she always loved doing despite the absolute pain of it.

"Part of that may be true but Mark does have feelings despite his best efforts to hide them." Derek said from where he stood at the sidelines.

Ella rolled her eyes. "I don't see the point in apologizing to Mark because we'll be in the same position we are now next week and the thing is it's like this every week and it's starting to get a bit repetitive. "

"Nobody ever said this was going to be easy, Ella."

"Maybe, it's just not meant to be. Have you ever thought about that? Mark and I are two different people who happen to be biologically related… but we will never get along. We are just two people who should not be in contact with one and other and if it weren't for the fact he knocked mom up I wouldn't be here or have to put up with him. So we might as well quit while we're behind and save everyone the bother. It's easier this way." Ella replied

"That's not true Ella, the two of you are very alike and in more ways then either of you would like to admit. For some reason the two of you like to keep each other at arms distant but in your case it's arms length and armed with a taser." Uncle Derek assures me.

"Physically I may look like him but apart from that there is nothing else, i having nothing in common with that man then a few genes here and there and even then I wish I didn't." Ella retorted.

"Your both Yankee's fan." Derek pointed out.

"So are millions of other New Yorkers, that's not really a winning argument you have there Uncle Derek especially since the two of us have never seen a game together. Mark was always screwing of his latest possession of the week whilst I always went to the games with Grandpa Jeff and the rest of my family." Ella retorted.

"Well you have people in common."

"Like who?" Ella asked skeptically as she found that hard to believe. "And we both have to like them because most of the people I know hate Mark and I hate most of the people that he knows and Mark doesn't even know if I even friends and that pretty much says it all.

Derek smiled. "Me plus your mom and Dr. Torres, I know you like Callie so don't try and pretend like you don't Ella."

"Okay so we have you, mom, some doctor who Mark slept with and fixed my arm and the Yankees in common, that doesn't give me much confidence Uncle Derek. You are fighting a losing battle here buddy and we both know it." Ella quipped.

"Your both into sports especially football."

"Mark's into individual sports like golf, tennis and he played football during high school and I doubt he's played it since. Me on the other hand, I like skating, and hockey, I only play football on thanksgiving. So you lose on the sports argument." Ella replied as she continued to skate. "Look maybe I took it to far with the whole mom comment but can you really blame me? Mark knows nothing about me and he's supposed to be my father, he doesn't know my allergies, my interest even the phone numbers of my relative so I'm surprised he remembers my dead mother. But you can forget about me apologizing to him, yeah I was out of order about the mom thing but I was right about everything else and you know it."

"So you want Mark to try and be better, is that it?" Derek questioned but Ella lost concentration as she skated and ended up falling smack bang on her side. "Ella, you okay?"

Ella just lay there not responding until she realized that she was laying on ice, which is very cold and now making her wet. "I'm fine…"

"Did you hit your head? Anything broken" Derek asked as he inched closer to the ice from the safety of the sidelines and Ella couldn't help but smile as she got back up and continued from where she had left off. Derek was always the doctor but foremost the doting uncle.

"No, unfortunately my body broke my fall." Ella wearily joked; she'd be feeling that tomorrow morning no doubt about that but then she thought back to what Uncle Derek asked her before she fell. "Do, or do not. There is no try."

"Excuse me?" Uncle Derek asked.

Sighing Ella repeated herself. "Do, or do not. There is no try."

"What does Yoda and Star Wars have anything to do about this?"

"You asked me if I wanted to Mark to try and be better with me and that's my response. I don't want him to try because apparently that only works for a few hours with him. I want him to just do it; no more thinking about it, just action and I certainly don't want you to tell him what he needs to do for me. He's the parent in this situation and he needs to start acting like it, seriously the man is intimidated by me, his fourteen year old daughter." Ella firmly explained.

"Ella, it's not like he doesn't try –"

"Hard enough?" Ella interrupted. "From my point of view it seems to be a lack of trying, it's more like failure on his part. He's been a parent for fourteen and a half years and most of that time mom was raising me. But mom is gone and he was supposed to take over but he hasn't, other people have been doing his job for him like you and my family back in New York. He needs to step up Mark and do what it is right for me; he's my father and I deserve better than this."

Derek sighed. "You have a point about that but you have to admit Ella you don't make it easy for him, you shoot him down at every possibility. You have to remember that before Mark had Sabrina helping him along and then after she died we were all helping him out before you were sent away. Mark is being a single parent for the first time Ella and it's hard for him and you need to think about that. I get that you need a parent and trust me I understand what losing a parent is like and then being raised by a single parents is like too but you need to cut Mark some real slack here Ella. If Mark thinks he's going to fail at every opportunity with you, there's not even a point of him trying."

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Ella snapped back with.

"Who?"

"Samuel Beckett. Look I'll try harder, when I think he's putting some actual effort into me because me trying to make things work is me being here in Seattle and not going back to New York and letting everyone that Mark sent me away so he could protect his own ass. Look can we stop talking about him? It's putting me into a bad mood and now my feet hurt plus I'm starving so it's not really a good combination."

"Well there's forty minutes before my shift starts, so how about I take you out for a quick bite to eat and then I'll drop you back off at the hotel. How does that sound?" Derek offered and Ella grinned despite knowing that Derek had ulterior motives but she didn't care as he was buying her all this nice stuff and generally being sweet about everything.

"Okay, but only if you tell me about this nurse you've been seeing for the last few weeks." Ella began as she skated over to the side of the rink Derek was at. "As your loving niece I feel obligated to know about any new woman in your life who is of special interest."

"I see what you're doing here Ella and it won't work with me, you just want to meet her and she what she's like and then convince me to break up with her when you realize you don't like her." Derek said with an amused look on his face.

No I don't… I just want to meet her and make a few things clear, like how much of an important figure you are in my life and stress how much of a good man you are. That kind of stuff." Ella said, which was half the truth but Derek didn't have to know that because if he did know the truth he'd never let her meet Nurse Rose.

"Okay, the three of us will have dinner soon that way you can both get to know each other." Derek relented and Ella grinned, she still had it! All it took was a smile and some nicely arranged words to get what she wanted. Ella made a note of this to herself to use this with Mark to get him to leave her alone.


	9. Chapter 9

_"Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast, it shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye."_

_ Khalil Gibran_

"I'm here now… So what the hell is so damn important that I had to meet you here of all places Mark?" Ella demanded as she walked up to Mark, he had called her and insisted that she come and meet him outside this particular building for god knows what reasons.

She hadn't seen him in just over a week after the whole mom thing and mostly it was due to the both of them being too busy to actually make the effort of avoiding each other. Mark had work whilst Ella had school and social commitments such as meeting the not really infamous Nurse Rose. A couple of days ago Ella had a home cooked dinner with her and Derek at Rose's apartment, it had gone better than Ella had expected although she had to admit that she preferred Meredith to be quite honest although she couldn't tell Derek that. But Rose was nice and she really seemed to make an effort with Ella which Derek appreciated but Ella broke it down for him. She explained that as she was the most important female to him here in Seattle and that her opinion alone could influence the relationship and whether it would be make or break. Ella explained that it was just like when men enter new relationships with a woman they have to impress the best friend otherwise he was screwed. For a highly renowned neurosurgeon he was awfully slow at grasping the concept point but he had finally got there.

Last night however Ella stayed over at Poppy's and had to make her way over from Poppy's house to this building much to her dismay and Ella looked at Mark waiting for an answer but he didn't say anything. Instead he walked into the building and Ella reluctantly followed him inside the pretty swanky building and into the elevator. The entire journey was in complete silence, not one word was said as they got off on the ninth floor and Mark opened a door marked 912 and motioned for Ella to go inside. "What do you think?

"Of what? You didn't exactly explain why you dragged me down here Mark…" Ella explained as she glanced around, they were in a condo and she had to admit that it was really nice but that wasn't really the point. Ella wanted to know why Mark had taken an hour out of his precious time to show her a condo when they lived in a hotel.

"About living here? You're going to be living here, starting today." Mark announced and this stunned Ella and she never expected him to say something like that.

"Me? I'll be living here… I don't understand Mark. Are you trying to get rid of me again?" Ella demand with a snarl as this was a classic Mark thing to do. By an expensive apartment for her so that he would have to see as little as Ella as possible.

Mark shook his head and seemed slightly amused and Ella was just getting further irritated as she didn't see the funny side of this. "Derek was right, a hotel is no place for a kid to be living at and we both know that neither of us are ready to live in the same place so I brought this place for you. It has everything you could need plus a doorman."

"You bought me a condo? Just out of the blue you brought me this condo?" Ella asked as she slowly began to let her suspicions slide as she began to look around and it didn't take her long to notice that her possessions were all. "How are my things all here?"

"I paid movers to bring them over here the all day yesterday, whilst you were at your friends house." Mark admitted and Ella would begrudgingly admit under the pain of death that she was impressed that not only had Mark managed to do this under her nose but he knew that she was at a friends house. Given that Ella had not mentioned it to him at all. "I'll be taking care of the bills so you don't have to worry about that and I'll give you money weekly for groceries."

"Okay…" Ella just waiting for the catch, like Grandpa Jeff always told her there's no such things as a free lunch but then her Grandma Bea always said never look a gift horse in the mouth.

"I thought you'd like this…"

"I do. I'm just surprised." Ella allowed herself to admit before she noticed Mark was looking at her with a weird look on his face, one Ella didn't like the look off. "You're staring at me, why?"

Mark took a deep breath. "You look exhausted Ella, are you still having nightmares?"

"No." Ella lied and it was clear that Mark did not believe her in the slightest but he didn't press the subject further, most likely in fear of getting yelled at some more.

"There's a present for you in the kitchen." Mark said and Ella wearily glanced at him before slowly making her way into the kitchen, she wasn't sure how many more surprises she could handle from Mark today given that she was still trying to process the fact that he had brought her a bloody condo. Walking into the kitchen Ella saw a cardboard box with a pink bow on it sitting on the kitchen counter. Taking a deep breath Ella slowly opened the box and peered in and saw that there was a puppy; a chocolate labrador puppy.

"Mark…" Ella said in a rather chocked voice as she felt her heart swell as she looked back at the puppy, it was perhaps the nicest and sweetest thing that Mark had ever done for her.

"It's so someone will always be here when you get home." Mark told Ella. "The dog is called Sid, it's a boy. When you were younger, I think round about seven you wanted a dog so much but your mom said you couldn't have one and despite this you used to beg and plead with me for one. I almost caved a couple of time but I knew your mom would kill me so I got you a toy one instead and you called it–"

"Sid. I remember, thanks Mark."

"No problem kid." Mark said before giving Ella a quick pat on the head, at the moment that was the only way they could show any form affectation towards each other. "I have to head back to work now, you going to be okay?"

Ella nodded her head as she watched Mark head towards the door and something tugged in her chest, Mark had just made such a huge effort and he was clearly trying with her so Ella figured maybe she could try a bit harder too. "Hey… If you and Uncle Derek want, you can come over after work and I'll make us dinner."

"Sure." Mark replied, looking quite stunned at the offer.

"Look about what I said last week… It was pretty out of order and I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings." Ella began and she knew it wasn't that much of an apology but it was the most she could muster considering what Mark had just done for her.

"It's fine kiddo, I know your mom meant a lot to you so I'll forget it." Mark replied as he placed a stack of notes and a set of keys down on the table before giving Ella a wave as he walked out the door.

"I think you and me are going to get along swell. Though I can't believe old man Mark actually brought me a dog, last thing I ever expected him to do them again he's done that a lot today." Ella said as she peeked back into the box and pulled Sid out from the box and she couldn't help but grin he was just so cute and small, placing him on the kitchen counter Ella's eyes caught his red collar. Looking at the dog tag she saw the name Sid, with my apparent new address and on the back it had Ella's along with Mark's name and contact details. It was official; Mark had lost his goddamn mind, but if he wanted to spend hundreds of thousands dollars on Ella who was she to complain? Especially if she got someone as cute as Sid.


	10. Chapter 10

_"Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character." _

_Gregory Maguire_

"I'm sorry, I just still can't wrap my head around this place and what you've just told us." Luke said as Ella had finished retelling the story of what happened on the weekend. "You're telling me that your dad just got up one day and decided to buy you a condo? To live in by yourself?"

Ella nodded. It was now Monday and she was still trying to get her head around, like agreed both Mark and Derek came over and Ella cooked them all dinner and all three of them behaved like civilized people and dare Ella admit it but she had a good time. But come this morning and the first thing Ella did when she got to school was tell Luke, Alfie and Poppy about the condo and she invited them over to check out her new living arrangements and they were all in the living room as Ella finished telling the story again. "Yeah, I know it's weird, after I left Poppy's Mark called me and asked me to meet him here and once I arrived he dropped the bombshell. He's literally taken care of everything, food, cable, internet and he had all my stuff brought over before I had got here."

"He must have spent a lot of money on a condo like this especially with this beautiful view…" Poppy said in awe as she continued to gaze out of the window.

"Probably but that's one of the things that Mark likes to do, is spend ridiculous amounts of money." Ella stated but as cavalier as she sounded even she was still shocked at Mark's sudden splurge of cash. Expensive clothes and scotch were Mark's things but not condos especially one like this one, Ella pretty sure it cost more than the whole of my tuition over the two years she spent at Brewster's and that was $40,000 a semester.

"Sloan, what exactly does your dad do to earn enough of cash to buy a condo at the drop of a hat?" Alfie asked as he continued to play with Sid. "I don't think you've ever mentioned what he does, just that he moved here for work."

Ella laughed at the question and at the fact that Alfie was still continuing to call her by her surname. "My father isn't a drug dealer if that's what you were thinking Alfie, Mark's a plastic surgeon and a Otolaryngologist. Well technically he's a Otolaryngologist surgeon with a sub specialty in plastic surgery."

"A what?"

"An Otolaryngologist, it means he specializes in the ears, nose and throat. It's easier to call him an ENT, anyway back home he was the plastic surgeon you went to see on the east coast, which always pays very well. But now it's the west coast and he used to have a practice in New York but he sold it before he moved to Seattle to work at this hospital, plus Grandpa Sloan is loaded. So the cash is somewhere between there or elsewhere, I don't really know and I don't question it much." Ella said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Is this your dad?" Poppy asked holding up a picture and walking over to her Ella took a look at it and shook her head, it was a picture of her and Derek taken when she was ten.

"No, that's my uncle who's actually my godfather who also lives here in Seattle and works with Mark but as neurosurgeon, but there's one of Mark somewhere…" Ella began as she looked around trying to look for a photo of Mark because she knew she had at least one of him laying around somewhere. She had tons of photos of her family, Sid, her friends but Mark not so much. Excusing herself for a moment Ella walked over to her hallway closet and dug through a box until she found a framed photo. After pushing the box back into the closet, Ella returned to the living room and handed the box to Poppy. It was a photo of her and Mark at Christmas two years ago, it would be three later on this year. Ella remembered that Christmas well as it was her first one without her mom and everyone had put in so much effort to make it the best Christmas they could for her. However happy memories Ella had in this frame, it was the last holiday she spent with Mark and the last photo they had taken together as months later she was shipped off to Brewster's.

"Wow… the resemblance is uncanny." Poppy said to Ella as she passed the photo to Luke who then passed it onto Alfie.

"Yeah it is, Ella you really look like your old man." Luke murmured in agreement.

"So what's the deal with you and your dad Sloan? He just let's you call him by his first name and let's you live in a condo by yourself?" Alfie asked. "Does your mom not have anything to say about it?"

"Well if she did she couldn't as dead parents can't talk." Ella replied.

"Sloan, I'm sorry…"

"Honestly it's fine, you didn't know and I'm fine. It's been two and a half years so I don't get upset about it much but anyway back to my old man. It's difficult to explain but yeah he lets me call him by his first name, well he doesn't really say anything about it really as he knows I refuse to call him dad anymore." Ella explained which was kind of the truth as Mark had only commented on the fact that Ella didn't call him dad and he's never said that she had to call him it. "We're two very different people despite appearances and it's easier living this way as it leads to less arguments, longest we've stayed under the same roof was a little under six months and that didn't end well... the Sloan's are very passionate people."

"Really? Six months?" Poppy asked in amazement.

"Yeah I lived with my mom before she died and six months after that I was sent to boarding school but it's no big deal I see him a lot of the time either I'll stop by the hospital during one of his shifts seeing as he works a lot or he'll drop by here to check that I'm still alive…"

"You have it so easy Ella, I wish my parents were that laid back, they freak out if call them by their first name let alone if I asked if I could live by myself at the age of fourteen." Luke laughed and Ella forced herself to smile.

"Yep, the life of Ella Sloan is pretty swell, I couldn't ask for a better life. Great friends, nice home and a beautiful dog it's everything a girl could want…"


	11. Chapter 11

_"Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man." _

_ C.S. Lewis_

Ella glided down the hallways of Seattle Grace Hospital with some sort of spring in her step, she was in a very happy and pleasant mood until she turned a corner and spotted her Aunt Addison. The same aunt who was formally married to Derek but cheated on him with Mark and when Ella found out she was shipped off to the boarding school from hell before she could even tell anyone, Ella was shocked to say the least and wanted to know what on earth was Addison doing here in Seattle? She knew Addison had worked here for a while before moving a few months before she arrived but Ella was under the impression based on the information she had been given that Addison lived and worked in LA now. Ella stood there and just stared at Addison and pretty soon she realized someone was watching her.

"Ella…" Addison begun.

"I heard Satan was roaming the halls here…" Ella began with a lie, which was becoming all too easy to her lately but she had bigger issues on her plate right now then the lying thing. "What did you have to do? Leave the pitchfork and horns at home and promise not to devour any innocent human souls?"

"I'm not here to cause any trouble, I'm only here on a case and once it's done I will be back on a place straight to LA..."

"I'd make you swear on the bible, but we all know that the devil and the bible don't mix as you can't touch holy things. You know you saying that you're not here to cause any trouble is like Eve saying she didn't eat the apple… but we all know the truth." Ella said, having no idea where the religious connotations were coming from but it was working until she couldn't hold it in anymore and she burst out laughing. "Hey Aunt Addie."

"Erm… forgive me if I wrong but the last time we saw each you told me that you hated me and that you hoped I burned a thousand deaths." Addison asked shocked at Ella's happy go luck mood.

Ella scratched her head, that mouth and temper of hers really didn't work that well together especially when she was angry and back then she was pretty ticked off to put it lightly at both Addison and Mark. With Addison she wasn't so much as angry with her as she was with Mark seeing as Addison only cheated on Derek and didn't ship her out the picture. "Yeah… about that, I shouldn't have spoken to you like that I was just really and I mean really angry. It was a very difficult and angry time…"

"I am so sorry Ella for everything that has happened, Derek told me what happened at Brewster's and if I had known any of that was going on I would have come and got you myself, you know that right?" Addison said as she pulled Ella into a tight hug and once she let go Ella smiled weakly and nodded her head. It wasn't that she didn't believe Addison because she did, it was just that Ella didn't feel like talking about Brewster's and it just kept coming up, it was a constant reminder which never went away no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.

"Don't worry about it Aunt Addie, I'm fine and turning a new page based on everything that happened there, I'm evolving and becoming a better person or so I'm trying to be. But how's L.A? And nice hair Aunt Addie, I really like it." Ella said in swift effort to move things along as talking about her experiences at the boarding school from hell was not her favourite pastimes.

"Thank you but we're not talking about me at the moment, right now I want to know everything that going on with you since you came to Seattle, I've really missed Ella." Addison said as her and Ella began walking.

"Fine… I'm assuming you've heard about the deal I made with Mark and Uncle Derek about me staying here for a year so I'm skipping over it for time reasons. But anyway, I'm at a school that is a very good one and miles better than the one I used to be at, I have friends for the first time in years. Mark got me a nice apartment to stay in and I…"

"Wait – you're staying in an apartment by yourself." Addison asked interrupting.

Ella shook her head. "Of course not that that would be silly, I'm not by myself there's Sid."

"And who's Sid?"

"My dog." Ella replied with a grin.

"You're living in an apartment with a dog called Sid?" Addison asked Ella rather skeptically.

"The way you say it makes me sound crazy but it's pretty cool actually, look Aunt Addie I am nowhere near ready to be living in the same building let alone the same apartment as Mark. Sid is there so I'm not alone and both Mark and Uncle Derek have keys to my apartment and they come over to check all the time to check how I'm doing to make sure I'm not up to any funny business. Honestly it's fine, Mark and I living separately is better for the both of us."

"Well, well is it isn't my two favorite girls." Mark said with a certain peppiness that was similar to the one Ella had only minutes ago as he popped up out of nowhere and Ella put this down to Addison being here.

"Is there a reason you're like this Mark? Do I have to drug test you?" Ella demanded as Mark behaving this way was just plain weird, but she'd deal with that later on as right now she couldn't exactly care less.

Addison laughed. "Mark thinks he's like god because over the past six weeks he's been growing a baby's skin flap for the case we're working on together."

"Hey! Don't roll your eyes at that, it's pretty amazing what I've achieved." Mark told who had rolled her eyes at her father being so narcissistic.

"And I'm very proud Mark, but whilst you're here and I have your attention I need you to give me $200." Ella quipped holding her hand out for his wallet.

"For what?"

"The school's hockey team lost a player so I tried out and I made the team, so I obviously need a new hockey stick seeing as the very mean people at Brewster's stole mine and used it for firewood." Ella said pouting to get more sympathy than she already had and to make Mark feel guilty. It was bad thing to do but Ella would feel guilty later.

"There you go." Mark said reluctantly handing over the money.

"Thanks, I'll catch you both later!" Ella happily replied, sticking the money in her pants pocket and proceeding to walk off.

"Hey, I thought you were going to buy a new hockey stick!" Mark called out.

"I am! Just going to tell Uncle Derek the good news!" Ella yelled in response as she continued to walk away but five minutes later she had realized that Mark had given her way too much money. Normally that wouldn't bother Ella as she loved taking Mark's money and spending it but as of later she didn't. Given that she spent god knows how much money on a condo for her, so Ella backtracked to find Mark to give him some of his money back. She found Mark along with Addison in a lab and they were in the middle of having a conversation about her so she decided to eavesdrop instead of interrupting.

" …I noticed Ella's been calling you by your first name, when did she stop calling you dad?" Addison asked Mark who just sighed.

"Since she got here, but she says she stopped calling me dad a couple of years back, I don't know if it's true or not given that Ella is very selective with what she tells me but I don't deserve to have her call me dad. Not after where I sent her to… that place changed her in so many ways Addison. I just have to look at her and see that she's not the same kid that she was before."

"I can't believe she didn't tell any of about what was going on there… has she said anything else about Brewster's?"

Mark shook his head "She doesn't like talking about it but it's obvious she's still pretty angry about it and it's clearly affecting her, Ella's been having nightmares or rather night terrors ever since she left Brewster's and came here. I asked her recently whether she was still having them and she lied straight to my face, I wasn't expecting her to tell me the truth but I was surprised about how easy it is for her to lie to me. I don't know the finer details of what they did to her but I know she wasn't sleeping too well there and Ella was scared that those kids were eventually going to kill her… Derek wants her to see someone so she can talk about what happened and get some closure but Ella keeps refusing. She's content with trying to pretend it never happened."

"Mark… Derek's right, she needs to see someone. Two years she stayed there and who knows how much damage that place inflicted on her…" Addison began and Ella watched as Mark shook his head in disgust.

"Addison, my daughter is not crazy. If she doesn't want to talk to a shrink then she doesn't have to. I forced her to go to Brewster's I'm not forcing her to go and talk to some shrink. Ella believes she knows what she's doing and I'm trusting her on that, I like to believe that when she does want to get help than she'll come to me or rather Derek…"

"How is everything between the two of you?"

"We're being civil at the moment but I can never tell, one minute we're taking two steps forward the next five steps back. Right now we're having what I like to call a good day, where there's no arguments just us both being nice and making an effort with each other. Mainly it's about me earning her trust back and trying to make amends for what I did because if I don't, I doubt when this year is over she'll ever want to see me again…" Mark sighed before taking a deep breath. "Everything was so much easier when she was a child, even though I wasn't around constantly I knew what to do and if I didn't I asked Sabrina, now Ella's constantly angry and yelling and it's all my fault but I have no idea on how to fix it. People come to me to fix what's on the outside but I can't even help my daughter fix her problems on the inside. What does that tell you about my skills as a parent?"

Ella decided to leave after hearing this, for some reason she just couldn't deal with Mark placing the blame on all on himself. Whilst she did it all the time but hearing Mark saying it aloud was something different. So Ella left the hospital to run a couple of errands and returned a few hours later to the hospital later to say goodbye to Addison. But first she located Mark as had something for him and luckily for her she found him on the surgical floor by the nurses station. "Hey Mark…"

"Hey… what's up Ella?"

"Here, I got you something." Ella replied as she placed a small wrapped box on the table and motioned for Mark to take it."

"Um kiddo, you do know my birthday has passed already, right? You and Derek got me a watch…" Mark questioned and Ella just nodded as she recalled that very recently and just motioned for Mark to take the gift and open it. Slowly Mark picked it up and shook it, causing it to make a quiet rustling noise.

"I got it to say thank you, for everything you've done for me lately with Sid and the condo, I know at times I can be an unbearable little spore and I don't make things easy for you but your trying very hard Mark and I can see that. So this me saying that I appreciate that." Ella said trying to sound as less uncomfortable as she currently felt.

Mark nodded and slowly began to unwrap the present and once he had he looked it in confusion before turning to Ella. "You got me a toy, thanks…"

"No I got you a Mr. Potato head, seriously Mark these toys are legendary I even had one of these growing up. It has a bunch of attachable parts such as ears and eyes to make a face, so you can muddle around with it. The store luckily sold other variations of the parts so you can mix and match." Ella explained pointing to the toy. "Look I saw it in the store and thought it would be perfect for you seeing as you are an Otolaryngologists and this is kind of your thing given that you are a plastic surgeon."

"Seriously, you brought this for me?" Mark questioned.

"I figured that I should do something nice for you." Ella replied with a shrug of shoulders, trying to make as less of a big deal out of this as Mark was trying to do. "So I take it you like it…?"

"I love it! Thanks kiddo." Mark replied with a grin and then Ella made the mistake of asking Mark how his day went, specifically how the case he was working with Addison, which included being every single detail of the case and what Mark did twice and he was like god for growing skin for a baby.

"You've made your point several times Mark, I know you grew skin for a baby whose heart grew on the outside of his body and partly thanks to you it's now back where it belongs." Ella said as she pressed the button again for the elevator. "And for the last time I will say that I'm proud of you for saving a child's life instead of doing a face lift for a fifty-two year old who is trying to cling on in vain to her non-existent youth."

Mark chuckled. "I never realized but you're pretty funny Ella, sarcastic as hell but funny."

"Appreciate the compliment, I've started to see that there is some layers underneath the arrogant ass that you are." See? She was trying.

"Thanks, I think… so any plans tonight?" Mark asked.

"I do actually, I'm going out for dinner."

"Not with some boy?"

"Nope, a very lovely man." Ella said as the elevator doors opened, inside was Derek with his ex wife, ex girlfriend and his new girlfriend, which made for an awkward situation. Ella quietly snickered before turning to Mark who was wearing the exact same expression on his face, the two of them walked into the elevator and Ella tried her hardest not to snicker as she looked around at the occupants in the elevator.

"I bet you wish you had taken the stairs right now." Mark whispered to Derek, which set Ella off completely.

"You are just like him." Derek quietly whispered to Ella once she managed to get a hold of herself, which was very hard as every time she looked around it just set her off again. So now Ella's eyes were trained on the elevator doors but she took the comment about her being like Mark as a compliment. Once the elevator opens on the ground floor both Rose and Meredith quickly go leaving Ella with her trio of relatives.

"Remember our deal?" Addison asked.

"Yep, when school ends I will be flying out to spend the week with you in LA where I will just relax and do nothing strenuous except burn a hole in Mark's credit card and relax on the beach." Ella quipped.

"Hey!" Mark retorts.

Ella rolled her eyes. "Don't worry Mark, I'll bring you back something nice."

"It was lovely to see you Ella, I'll miss you." Addison told Ella as she hugged her goodbye, and as Mark and Derek engaged in a conversation Addison leaned in closer to whisper in Ella's ear. "Keep me updated on this thing with Derek…"

"Will do! See you soon Aunt Addie." Ella replied with a small wave before her and Derek walked off in a opposite direction.

"Where are you two going?" Mark yelled.

"I'm taking my wonderful niece out for dinner."

"I like that."

Derek raised one of his brows and Ella couldn't help but grin. "The dinner or being called wonderful?"

"Both of course."

"I'm going to say this again, you are just like your father."


	12. Chapter 12

_"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." _

_Douglas Adams_

Skating around the ice rink, Ella pondered many things such as what should she have for dinner or what route she should walk Sid tonight but really troubled her was a conversation that she had with Mark earlier. Ella had told him that she had my first big hockey tomorrow and not only did he promise that he'd come and watch the whole game but after they'd hang out and do something.

Recently Mark and her had been getting along better however now she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Derek called Ella the most depressing pessimist that he had ever met and that she should just enjoy the fact that her and Mark were getting along for once. But Ella had deep seeded trust with issues with him, which they were working on however she was still skeptical when it came to him. She didn't want to trust Mark just for him to disappoint her. And then Ella fell, smack on her bum for the fourth time today. She was pretty sure the next time she did that she would probably break it, which she kind of wanted to avoid happening.

"Your state of mind affects your skating, whatever is troubling you can be see in your movements, it isn't fluid as it usually is." A voice said and as Ella got up she saw a blonde boy who looked close to her age standing by the side of the rink. Ella knew him but then again she didn't as she just saw him around the rink a lot.

"I know, that's why I skate it helps me clear my mind. Your one of the ice-hockey guy, right? You have practice right after I after I do." " Ella began as she skated over to him. She didn't know this because she was some kind of a stalker it was just from causal observation as she saw him at the rink constantly not to mention a few weeks back she was getting her skates sharpened when she saw him come on to the rink with the other ice-hockey guys.

"Yeah that's me and you're the figure skating girl." The boy replied and Ella found it highly amusing that he had a name for her.

"I suppose I am." Ella replied.

"Grayson."

"Ella."

"So where's your trainer?" Grayson asked.

"Trainer? What are you talking about?" Ella questioned as she began skating around the rink again as she had no idea what Grayson was talking about as she didn't have a trainer. Well she used to, when she first began taking lessons when her mom became sick but she hadn't had a lesson in over a year. She just did her own thing now. "I don't skate professionally, it's just something I do –"

"– To clear your head… judging by your skill I would have never guessed that you weren't pro. I thought that tall dark haired guy who's always with you when you come and skate was your trainer." Grayson said and Ella quickly realized that he must be referring to Derek but she still took the compliment on her skating abilities.

"Oh him… that's my uncle, he usually comes and watches me skate but he's got this really big thing on at work and I don't want to disturb him." Ella said briefly referring to Derek's clinical trial with Meredith, which reminded her to check on him and maybe take him some soup as Derek had been looking pretty tired and stressed lately which was understandable seeing as so far all his patients in the trial had died.

"You ever think about taking skating up professionally?"

"Can't say the thought ever crossed my mind, I've had offers from my teachers back when I started but I think if I did it would get to the point where it be more about competitions than it was about me enjoying myself. If that makes any sense." Ella said and it most likely didn't make any sense at all but she didn't care if Grayson thought she was an idiot although he probably already thought that from watching her repeatedly trip today.

But it seems Ella was actually wrong and Grayson did get what she meant. "I understand."

"What about you Mr. Ice Hockey, thinking about going pro?" Ella asked.

Grayson shook his head. "Not really, I see myself doing something else in life but I like using hockey as a way to get rid of the pent up anger and stress I have in my life."

"I have to admit it's good for that."

"You play?" Grayson asks surprised.

"Field hockey is my poison, ice hockey is a bit too extreme for me." Ella replied as the thought of playing ice hockey terrified her, she went to the occasional match and watched it on tv but that's as far as it went. The brutishness, violence and injuries she had seen had been more than enough to put her off from ever playing.

"So you're pretty quick on your feet then? On and off the ice." Grayson questions.

"Is that a line?" Ella asked in bemusement over Grayson's question as although she had never really thought about it that way but it was certainly an interesting way to look at things. She was pretty quick when it came to skating and my running abilities were fairly good down to playing hockey and running with Aunt Star in central park whenever she went home.

"What?" Grayson asked feigning shock before looking away but Ella from where she was could see him smiling.

"It was, wasn't it? Look at you, you're blushing!" Ella chuckled.

"I talk to a pretty girl and I say something and she instantly thinks I'm hitting on her? You know making assumptions like that could get you into trouble you know." Grayson said and Ella rolled her eyes.

"Not when it's true as that was a line, I know it and so do you. I'll admit that it wasn't too bad and to answer you question about being quick on my feet, you could say that I am."

"How long have you been doing both?" Grayson asked moving things along.

"I started playing hockey since I was eight and skating since just before I turned twelve… what about you?"

"I started with pee wee hockey when I was six."

"Six? You started playing hockey when you were six?" Ella slowly said as she was pretty certain she was still playing with dolls at that age and content with doing that. As she continued to skate Grayson and her kept talking and she found out that the two of them had a lot of things in common like the fact that he moved to Seattle with his family from Chicago two years ago. They keep talking until my time on the rink ran out and Ella changed from my skates back into her regular shoes.

"It was a pleasure finally meeting you Ella, see you next week?"

"Maybe. In the meantime it will give you sometime to work on better pick up lines."


	13. Chapter 13

_"Fear is a weakness. It makes a person lose her nerve and her cool. It makes people jumpy and organizations nervous, and when that happens, there is always a chance to take advantage."_

_ Ally Carter_

Ella knew she shouldn't have been so stupid as to think she could actually trust Mark. She should have known better and now it had bitten her back times 3x. She couldn't believe that her forgot when Mark swore to Ella that he would be there this time. The fact that the man had shipped her off to boarding school and ignored for two years was the reason why Ella didn't trust Mark and she knew that she could never trust a word that came out of his mouth.

Ignoring all the stares that she was receiving Ella walked into the lobby of the Archfield and headed straight over to the elevators and took it to the 22nd floor, getting out as soon as the doors open. Ella walked over to my door and fumbled in my very damp bag for Mark's room key as she was doing this Ella could hear voices towards the door and she eventually open the door. Looking up Ella saw that it's Mark and Callie and immediately her heart drops but then again she really shouldn't be surprised. This is what she been waiting for the last few weeks, the other shoe to drop.

"Oh my god! Ella what happened to you." Callie began as soon as she saw Ella and got up and came rushing over.

"Is this what you were doing instead of coming to my game?" Ella said ignoring Callie and turning to Mark and she watched as he face dropped as he remembered that today was game day.

"Ella, I am so sorry."

"You jackass! How could you forget me! I called you so many times. I reminded you so many times and you promised you would be there, but instead you choose to whore around as always! What is wrong with you? Is it that hard for you to take a couple of hours to do something for me?" Ella asked.

"I don't even know where to begin…"

"How about the part where you promised to come to the game and hang out with me afterwards? I waited for you for over two hours and I kept calling you but you never picked up."

"Ella, if you couldn't get through to me you should have called Derek or paged me" Mark began.

"No, don't put this on him or me this is about you Mark! I had no idea where I was or how to get home, the only money I had was $64 and that wasn't even enough to get me to the hotel just to the outskirts of Seattle. Hence why I'm so wet…"

"What about the credit card? You should have used that.."

That was actually funny; Mark and Ella had the biggest fight on Tuesday about his credit card and it got to the point where they were both yelling at each other. But the funny side was that Mark forget about it that quickly but then again he seems to forget me rather quickly as well. "There is none! You took it away from me after accusing me of stealing money from your wallet last week but as usual you don't remember anything that remotely resembles parenting. I had to walk for over an hour in the pouring rain to get back here to find out that instead of being at my game you decided to spend the day screwing her."

"I completely forgot El, I'm really sorry…" Mark begins again.

"Is it that easy for you to forget about me? You are supposed to be MY parent; you were supposed to be there today. I agreed to stay here in Seattle, I could have gone back to my life and friends in New York. You were supposed to be trying to convince me to stay here!"

"Ella you need change out of your wet clothes." Callie interrupted.

"Don't tell me what to do, I will stay in these clothes for how ever long I feel like." Ella snapped before holding her hand out to Mark.

"What?"

"How am I supposed to get home without any money? Did you not listen to me at all?" Ella demanded and Mark grabbed his wallet but before he could even open it, Ella snatched it out of his hand and took all the money that was in there before tossing it to the side and walking out the room without a second glance. It took Ella about ten minutes to find a cab that would take her home in the state she was in and when she got home somehow Mark was already there.

"Kiddo…"

"How did you get in here?" Ella blankly asked.

"I have a key for here given that I do own the condo." Mark explained and Ella just chose to look at anything but Mark.

"Leave."

"We need to talk and you need to get changed out of those wet clothes otherwise you'll get sick so I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay here as long as it takes, we're not avoiding this Ella." Mark said and Ella could feel the rage that she had been somewhat suppressing for the most just boil over.

"Are you crying?"

Ella actually looked at Mark after he asked this. "I don't cry anymore Mark. I haven't done so in almost three years because of you and even if I did, I would most certainly not cry over you as it doesn't achieve anything. Now get the hell out before I scream at the top of my lungs and throw things at you. I should let you know that my throw is very good."

The two of them stood there for about fifteen minutes, not saying anything instead having a battle of the wills to see who would cave first and eventually it was Mark who left. Once he had Ella got out of her wet clothes, showered and into pajamas and curled up in bed with Sid for company, Ella laid in bed for god knows how long and she wasn't anywhere close to falling asleep when there was a knock on her bedroom door. Ella sighed, she should have known that Mark would come back.

"Go away Mark, I'm sleeping."

The door opened and in walked Derek along with Nurse Rose as Ella referred to her as. Derek walked further into the room and sat at the side of the bed and motioned for Ella to sit up and once she did he hugged her. "You've probably figured it out but Mark called, he was worried that you would still be in your wet clothes and asked me to come and check on you."

"Did he also tell you what happened?"

"Well Mark told me what he knew, but I want to hear your side."

Sighing Ella explained everything that happened today, including the game, the hours of waiting and walking in the rain. "He's supposed to be my father, he should have been there. I waited for him for so long. It wasn't like he was on call or anything, he had the day off."

"You should have called me, I would have picked you up."

"I know, but that's not the point. Uncle Derek I love you but your not supposed to have to do all of this for me, I'm not your severely screw up kid, I'm Mark's messed up kid and he promised me. If you want me to stay in Seattle after our deal is over, Mark's going to have to put in some effort because at the moment I still want to go back home. I do not want to be ignored for another two years, if I wanted that I would have stayed at Brewster's."

"We brought you something to eat, we'd figured you'd be hungry." Rose says handing Ella a brown paper bag and a cup of hot chocolate. Ella looked in the bag and see that it's a sesame seed bagel and soup.

"I'm sorry… you guys were doing something" Ella rattled off before coughing.

"Hey, don't be ever be sorry about that. Your well-being is one of the most important things to me despite the fact that I am just your lowly godfather and I will be here whenever you need me. And you are not messed up Ella. Now, I want you to promise me if something like this ever happens again, I'll be the first person you'll call."

Ella nodded her head. "I promise."

"I don't like the sound of that cough and I'm worried that you might have caught something because of being in the rain for too long, do you mind if I have a quick check?" Derek asked pulling out a stethoscope and five minutes later Ella was told that she had a simple cold and was put under strict orders to rest, which was easier said than done. Even after Derek and Nurse Rose had left.

Ella managed to avoid Mark for several days by pretending to be asleep or hiding out in her neighbour Conrad's condo as she was 'house sitting' and taking care of his plants when she wasn't at school until today Mark caught Ella as she was getting ready to walk Sid. Somehow he could see she wanted to flee and so Mark threatened to use his key for her condo if she tired to run away so Ella begrudgingly went with him and now they were sitting in a local café.

"Kid, we need to talk." Mark began

"Fine." Ella grimly replied as she ate a spoonful of porridge, this was her first time out in the last three days apart from walking Sid or going to school."

"I'm really sorry about what happened, it's just slipped my mind…."

Getting angry with Mark these days seemed to get Ella nowhere, so she decided to use a softer approach. "Look Mark I understand, you're have this great life and career and the last thing you wanted was to be saddled with a 14 year old girl…"

"Don't say things like that, of course I wanted you I could have sent you to back to your family in New York or worse my parents." Mark said and the two of them just cringed. The one thing Mark and Ella had ever agreed on was his parents. "I think you living here in Seattle will be a good thing for the both of us."

"We don't have the most normal parent and child relationship and in some ways I'm grateful for that, I don't think I could handle you if you played the overbearing dad role. I also think that if you want me stay after this year is over you need to start putting in more effort with me and I know I don't make that easy by pushing you away at every chance so I'll try and work on it. If that works then I think we'll get to where we need to be in order for me to stay... I like that we can be open at ease with each other and I think that's how our relationship works. We know who each other are and we've accepted that."

"You're a good kid Ella, I'm sorry I haven't been around to realize that more."

"Thanks, I guess you and mom didn't do too bad of a job raising me."

"I bet this isn't what your mother had in mind." Mark said and Ella couldn't help but snort, if her mother could see me now living in Seattle in an apartment by herself, Ella reckoned she'd have some choice words about that. Mark then pulled out an envelope out of his jacket and slid it over to Ella. "Here, I got you something." Opening the envelope Ella saw that it's a credit card specifically a platinum American express one. "I've put you on the card, so you're free to use it but don't be stupid with it."

"Mark, you actually sounded like a parent." Ella noted.

"Thanks, I'll also be putting money into your bank account on a weekly basis, so you'll always be able to get cash, see, kid I'm learning."

Her father's words reminded Ella of the conversation that he and Addison had about her. "Don't beat yourself up Mark you're a good parent, it's just I'm not the same kid I was two years ago. But I know you're trying to help in whatever way you can and I appreciate it and I know mom would."


	14. Chapter 14

_"Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong." _

_Sarah Dessen_

When it came to pain Ella was rather tolerant towards it, she felt it naturally but she was one of those people who could deal with it without becoming a wreck. So as she was loaded of the ambulance and wheeled into the ER, Ella was coping as well as could be expected even with her leg looking the way it currently was. It hurt like hell but she wasn't going to cry about; she didn't cry anymore and she was not going to start doing it now. Ella was led over to a bay where she was transferred from the stretcher and onto a gurney, where she was told a doctor would be with her a soon as possible. Ella sat there for minutes not knowing what do so she decided to get someone here who actually knew what to do but also had the authority to get her seen quicker i.e. Mark. Although she couldn't physically get him given her leg and that being the reason she was here so she had to wait until a nurse was close enough for her to get the said nurse's attention.

"Excuse me nurse, could you page Dr. Sloan for me." Ella asked.

"Dr. Sloan is a plastic surgeon, he doesn't deal with broken legs but a doctor will and come and see you as they can." The nurse replied and Ella narrowed her eyes at the nurse because of her rather rude and dismissive attitude.

"I know who Mark Sloan, he's my d-dad and he'll want to know that I'm here so if you just page him and let him know that his daughter Ella is here, he'll be straight down." Ella explained but the nurse looked at her as if she was crazy. So Ella decided that she'd have to do it herself, leaning forward Ella had to stretch her arm as far as it could go in order to get her bag that was by her feet. Once she had her phone Ella paged Mark, leaving the message 999 and less that forty seconds later he was calling her.

"Ella, this had better be an emergency because I'm at work right now." Mark warned and Ella rolled her eyes as she knew Mark was at work and she didn't need to be told or lectured that she should never page Mark unless it's an emergency after hearing it ten million times already.

"Well I'm downstairs as I've just been brought into the ER so you can decide whether that's worthy of your time as you're the doctor here and I'm not –" Ella began.

"Wait? You're here?"

"Yes, I'll explain when you get here and please hurry." Ella finished before hanging up the phone in exasperation, sometimes she felt like talking to Mark was the same as talking to a brick wall; pointless. As irritating as the conversation had been Ella had to give Mark credit as he was downstairs and by her bedside in less than five minutes.

"Ella, what the hell happened?" Mark asked as he looked Ella over, but mostly at her leg.

"Clearly there's something wrong with my leg or are you so blind that you cannot see how it's been immobilized in a splint for some reason." Ella said motioning to her right leg just as another doctor came over brandishing a chart.

"Dr. Sloan, you know this girl?'

"Of course I do, she's my daughter." Mark replied waving his hand in annoyance that the doctor didn't seem to know who Ella was, and with his free hand he plucked the chart out of the man's hands. "Go page Dr. Torres."

"But I've been assigned to this case…" The doctor fumbled until Mark glared at him and moments later off went the nervous doctor.

"Kiddo, what happened?" Mark asked sitting down.

"There was an accident in school during gym I got hit whilst playing hockey and I took this bad fall and landed on my leg, the school made such a bad deal of it all and called an ambulance. They wanted to call you too but I told them was no point, if they insisted on making me go to the hospital there was no point in them calling you as I was going to run into you here. Anyway when the paramedics got here they wanted to take me to Mercy West but I told them, well rather demanded that they bring me here. I told them that I didn't want a whack job looking at my leg and I knew you and Derek would freak out if I didn't come here. So here I am." Ella explained

Mark managed to laugh. "Why didn't you have one the nurses page me?"

"I tried, but that one over there was being a right cow and telling me that you were a plastic surgeon and didn't deal with broken bones, even when I told her you were my… person." Ella said rather awkwardly as pointed to the nurse, she knew Mark was her dad but she just couldn't physically call him her dad to his face. But somehow he knew what she was trying to say.

"Stay here, I'll be right back." Mark replied slowly rising and before Ella knew what she was doing, she grabbed his arm.

"Excuse me? Where are you going? Injured child sitting here…" Ella replied, and she was rewarded for her comment by an affectionate pat on the head by Mark.

"I just want to have a quiet word with the nurse about why she didn't page me. I'll be right back Ells and you'll be able to see me the whole time."

"Okay, but don't be too long." Ella wearily said as she allowed Mark to go and it turns out she did the right thing in doing so. As Mark's small word turns into a big rant and starts drawing attention from all over the E.R. and Ella had a prime time view of all the action. She had never seen Mark so angry before in her life and even she hadn't managed to piss Mark off that badly and Ella had tired.

"Dr. Sloan calm down!" A calm yet crisp voice said and Ella watched as Derek came into view and it was clear he was trying to be professional about the whole thing as he called Mark by his title instead of his name.

"No I won't calm down, not when it comes to Ella. Look at her Derek she has a broken leg! She came all the way down here and when she asked this nurse to page me! Her own father! This nurse refused." Mark retorted as he turned and pointed to Ella before turning back to the nurse. "I don't care if it's a broken leg or even the bloody sniffles, who on earth do you think you are refusing my child her own father?"

"Mark you've made your point, you should have been called but now you need to go back and be with Ella." Derek soothed in a nice calming voice, which seems to work.

"I'm going to make this clear to everyone here, if my daughter asks for me to be paged then I had better be paged." Mark finished before turning around to make his way towards Ella.

"I thought you said you were going to have a quiet word, eh?" Ella joked when Mark rejoined her and it caused the two of them to start laughing until Ella winced in pain.

"The pain in your leg, how bad is it?" Mark asked.

"About a seven and a half to eight." Ella admitted.

"Don't worry, we'll get you something for the pain." Mark assured Ella who was seemingly at a loss for Mark's concern and at that moment Callie strolled through the curtain area and joined them. "Thanks for coming Callie, I really appreciate this."

"No problem."

"Mark, you said to Uncle Derek while you were outside that I had a broken leg, is that right?" Ella asked.

"Most likely." Mark replied and Ella wasn't sure how to respond to this information.

"However we won't know anything until after we've taken you for an x-ray, so don't worry." Callie assured Ella with a small smile and after giving her something for the pain; Callie went about examining Ella's leg. After that came the x-ray which took next to time and no waiting line. Though Ella suspected that Mark had pulled some strings or the radiology department along with the rest of the hospital found out about Mark's not so little blow up. Just over forty minutes later Ella and Mark were in a trauma room quietly talking when Callie returned. "I've got your x-rays back."

"So what's the diagnosis?" Ella asked.

Callie puts them on a light box and switched the light on so they could look at the x-ray. "Well Ella, you've got a tibial shaft fracture and as you can see on the x-ray it's not shattered and as it's a stable fracture you won't need surgery and from the exam it's clear that your soft tissue hasn't been damaged. We'll just have to do a couple of things before we put you in cast and then we need talk about follow up care."

"Okay… like what? And can you tell me how long I'll be stuck in the cast for as I can't be off hockey for too long." Ella asked, as she knew enough medical information to follow the conversation without having Mark translate for her.

Callie and Mark both take on a similar look and Ella know something's wrong, it was that look that doctors had when they were about deliver bad news. Ella knew it well as not only was Mark, Derek and her Uncle Sam doctors but she had seen that look countless times when her mother was sick. "Although you don't need surgery, but the kind of fracture you have is going to take between ten to thirteen weeks to heal and that's not including rehabilitation."

"Excuse me?"

"When the fracture is healed you'll need rehabilitation and because you're an athlete rehabilitation is going to take a bit longer, but judging by the x-ray your looking at least eight weeks of rehabilitation." Callie said.

"Thirteen weeks along with at least eight weeks of rehab? That's twenty one weeks, which is five months of recovery… But I'll able to walk properly, play hockey and skate after that, right?"

"You'll be able to walk properly, it'll take some time but with physio your leg will be as good as new." Mark assured Ella which was comforting but she noted he ignored the part about hockey and skating.

"What about me skating? Will I be able to skate afterwards? Yes or no?" Ella pointedly asked and even before she asked the question, she knew she wouldn't like the answer.

"We can't be certain because of the break, it depends on how it heals and how well you do in physio, but most likely not at the same level you skate now. The tibia is the largest weight bearing bone in the body and because of the fracture, the bone may become depressed or displaced." Callie explained and Ella leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She could not believe that this was happening, she refused to believe it.

"Get out…"

"Ella?"

"Get out! Get out!" Ella yelled until she heard the door shut and once she was alone she kept looking at the x-ray and repeating what she had been told in her head. Five months and she may never skate at the same level again. Ella kept telling herself that for god knows how long, up until she burst out crying. Actual gut wrenching tears, she hadn't cried in two years and the last time that she had was over something much worse than a broken leg. Despite her tears Ella could hear the door open and the found of footsteps and she automatically covered her face with her hand. "Go away…"

Despite her asking to be left alone Ella heard the sound of something moving and the next thing she knew someone had taken the hand covering her face in their own and moved it away. Ella saw that it was Mark who was now sitting beside her. "I'm not going anywhere kiddo, I'm staying right here Ells."

"This isn't fair Mark!" Ella chortled, half chocking on her tears.

"I know it's not kiddo." Mask assured Ella, gently brushing the top of her head.

"Five months… what am I supposed to do? Or how am I going to function? All I know is sarcasm, hockey and skating; I've only been on the school team for a few weeks… I was going to try out for the high school team in the fall . How am I supposed to walk Sid with one leg? I'll be on crutches on my birthday!" Ella stated which set her off again. "First my arm and now my leg!"

"We'll figure something out, it's not the end of the world."

"But I may never skate again…"

"Hey… We never said you wouldn't skate again, there's a very good chance that you will it's just going to take some patience and a lot of hard work but I know you can do it." Mark said.

"You think so?" Ella tearfully asked, feeling very much embarrassed that Mark had seen her crying.

"I know so and I'll be here every single step of the way." Mark assured Ella, who was completely surprised and overwhelmed by Mark's sincerity; it baffled her for so many reasons. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

Mark looked at Ella as if she had lost her mind, which she most likely had given that she was crying. "Ells, you're my kid… I'm supposed to take care of you when you're hurt, that's part of the job of being a parent or so you've been telling me these last few weeks."

"I don't deserve this, when I mean to you most of the time." Ella stated as she rubbed her eyes.

"Forget about it we both know I'm no saint myself, so how about after Callie fixes up your leg we go get some rocky road later."

"How do you know I like rocky road?" Ella asked.

"I know many things about you Miss Ella Matilda Sloan, like the fact that you once ate a whole carton of rocky road when you were nine, that you ended up being sick. Mom and I were both sitting with you as you were throwing up in my toilet." Mark revealed. "Now how about we clean you up and then I'll get Callie to come in and put your leg in a cast?"

"Okay."

Still on the stool he's sitting on Mark wheels himself around the room until he finds a box of tissues. Coming back over he wipes my tears away before holding another tissue over my nose. "Blow."

"Excuse me?" Ella asked.

"You heard me, now blow your nose." Mark ordered and reluctantly Ella did so and after Mark wheeled himself over to a hazardous waste bin and disposes of the tissues before coming back over to Ella. "This reminds me of when you were little especially when you were a baby with the noise, red face, tears and runny nose. Nice to see you haven't changed at all in that time although I will admit that I haven't had to make you blow into a tissue since you were eight… your mom used to tell me it was good practice for a doctor…"


	15. Chapter 15

_"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done."_

_ Vincent van Gogh_

Ella watched as Callie was finishing up on the final touches to her cast, after Mark had cleaned her up the two of them had talked for a little while longer before he went to retrieve Callie. Since then Ella had been kind of quiet, not saying much and even then only answering when it was unavoidable. Part of it was because she was still trying to digest the news but then she was thinking about everything Mark had just done; hence why she was about to do something she never thought she'd ever do. "I forgive you."

"Excuse me?"

"When you were yelling at that nurse about what happened you referred to me as your daughter. That means you think of me as your child and that you see yourself as my father. So I forgive your for the whole forgetting about my game thing." Ella said looking away from her leg and up at Mark.

"Just like that?" Mark asked apparently still in shock.

"You made a really big commotion about me being hurt and how no one informed you and that speaks volumes, so yeah just like that. Now I can't promise you that they're won't be the frequent spiteful comments or arguments but we're a work in progress and depending on how far we get, then perhaps I might stay here longer than a year. And just maybe I might stop calling you your name… but like I said Mark I can't promise anything, we have a long way to go but this is a step in the right direction." Ella admitted.

Mark smiled. "Thanks kid."

"No problem." Ella replied giving Mark a small smile and an affectionate pat on the head. She was still very much shocked and impressed with Mark's behaviour today and it was kind of inspiring in a way, After Ella's cast as been applied and dried Callie along with Mark helped her into a wheelchair that was able to support her leg. "Thanks for fixing me up Callie and I'm sorry about earlier…"

"Hey it's no problem, it's completely understandable." Callie assured Ella before handing her a black marker pen.

Mark and Ella left the trauma room minutes later with him wheeling her around the hospital and the two of them talked, about nothing really in particular just casual talking as Ella was still in shock over how supportive Mark had been about her leg. However it felt nice to know that she could go to him when she was in trouble. "Ella…"

we talk, it's nothing in particular but it's causal talking. I'm still in shock over supportive Mark's been about my leg however it feels nice knowing that I can go to him when there's an emergency. "Ella?"

"Sorry I zoned out, what were you saying Mark?" Ella feebly asked as whatever Callie had given her to numb out the pain of her leg had worked very well, perhaps little too well as Ella felt kind of sleepy.

"I have to finish up a few things up but it shouldn't take more than an hour but if does I'll get another attending to cover for me… Will you be okay in that time?" Mark tentatively asked, clearly worried that Ella was going to yell at him.

"It's fine Mark, I get that you have a job and in your line of work you can't just disappear in the middle of a shift so it's fine. Take all the time you need, although I might need help getting into a cab–" Ella began.

"Like hell you're getting into a cab alone, you're going to wait here until I've finished and then I am going to take you home that way I know your safe." Mark told Ella before looking around until something or someone catches his eyes. "You! Intern with the silly name over here."

Ella couldn't help but groan as of all the interns Mark had to go and get it had to be intern Pierce the one everyone hated. Last week Alex paid Ella twenty bucks to page Pierce every fifteen minutes to teach him a lesson after Pierce left his pager in the cafeteria. Which for a doctor was a very big no, no. "Yes Dr. Sloan?" Pierce asked.

"This is my kid, I want you to look after her for an hour okay? Make sure she get's something to eat and make sure she stays in that damn chair. I don't want to see her on her feet at any moment." Mark said before handing Ella a couple of twenty dollar bills. "Gives you any trouble, call me."

"Will do Dr. Sloan."

Ella glanced up at Pierce and proceeded to roll her eyes, for an intern he was pretty damn stupid. "He was talking to me moron."

Mark bent down so he could look Ella on an eye to eye level and turned her chin so she could stop glaring at the intern and look at him."I know he's a stupid intern and there's nothing we can do about that but I need someone to watch over you whilst I finish these things, the sooner I get them done the less time you have to spend with intern with a silly name."

"I don't like him, he's an idiot." Ella replied looking in Pierce's direction, there was something about him that bothered her and it wasn't just because of his name. There was something else, although she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Neither do I, all the interns are idiots so I'll have Karev assign him to the clinic for the whole of next week, how does that sound?" Mark asks Ella.

"Good." Ella replied with a small smile before proceeding to watch Mark give Pierce a very stern warning about what would happen to him if anything happened to her. After Mark left us Pierce started wheeling Ella around the hospital and it was barely five minutes when he left her at the nurse's attention to go off somewhere. "

What's with the kid Pierce?" Another intern asked.

"Oh her? I got stuck babysitting Sloan's brat…"

Brat? It was a good thing that Ella was unable to stand up at the moment otherwise she would have slapped him silly. Pierce was going to pay for that when Ella found Mark and Alex or whomever she found first. Hopefully it was Mark because after his performance downstairs in the E.R Ella was a hundred percent certain that Mark would destroy the next person who showed her any kind of disrespect. As the minutes went on while Ella waited for Pierce to finish his gossip session with interns all she could do was sit and watch people pass me by until she spotted someone of particular interest. "Uncle Derek!"

"Hey sweetheart I heard what happened, how are you feeling now?" Derek asked, making his way over to Ella and proceeding to place a kiss on her forehead.

Ella shrugged her shoulders with uncertainty. "I don't know, my head's all over the place and the drugs have very much kicked in so I'm not really sure of what to make of all of this but Mark's been great about all of this and very supportive."

"Judging by his outburst earlier I'm not surprised but I'm glad to hear that, Mark may not show it that often but he really cares about you Ella and today showed it. "

"The time on you booked for me on the ice has no doubt gone to waste, I'm looking at five months recovery time and we won't even know if I'll be able to skate again…" Ella stated as her eyes started to water as she was getting upset again which just upset her even more. "And now I'm crying over it like some emotional baby…"

"Hey it's okay, you have every reason to be upset Ella but I don't want you to worry about the time on the ice or anything else like that, your dad and I will take care of you and everything else that needs to be dealt with, so you just focus on your recovery." Derek began before looking around. "And speaking of your dad, where is Mark?"

"He had some things to finish up before he took me home but I said that I could just get into a cab but Mark wasn't having any of that, he said he wouldn't be more than an hour so the idiot known as Pierce got stuck with me but as I like to see it I got stuck with him." Ella wearily stated as she wiped her face with her sleeves.

Derek laughed right as he pager went off. "I've got to run but if I don't see you before you leave then I'll stop by your apartment before my shift tomorrow."

"I'll be there, it's not like I can go anywhere." Ella replied as she noted Derek eyeing up the marker in her hand so she held it out to him. There was no point in trying to keep it clean because people were going to want to write on it so Ella figured she should just let people go right ahead.

Taking the marker Derek scribbled down a quick message before handing Ella back the marker and taking off to wherever it was he was called. From where Ella was sitting she could make out the message fairly well. _Get well soon Ella, relax and stay off your feet! Love Uncle Derek. _It was even complete with little a palm tree that caused Ella to laugh and she looked at it for a while longer before realizing that the intern Pierce was off down the hallway. If he was stupid enough to leave her alone after what Mark said to him then Ella figured she might as well go her own way. It wasn't like she needed him, so she slowly began to wheel herself towards the cafeteria before realizing that she needed the toilet.

Wheeling herself in a wheelchair was much harder than Ella realized not to mention it took her ages to make any progress. By the time she made it to a bathroom she realized she needed to find a disabled one. Once Ella managed to get herself into said toilet it took her several minutes to work out how to use the bathroom in her condition. A long story short Ella finally managed to work it out and she emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later back in my chair. By this time Ella was feeling very drowsy because of the painkillers and she need to go rest somewhere quiet so Ella figured she'd go down to the tunnels considering the fact that you rarely ran into anyone there. Wheeling her way to the elevators Ella got the shock of her life when the doors open and there was Dr. Hudson; the pediatrician whose ass she kind of threatened to kick if he didn't discharge her.

"Hello Ella."

"Hey Dr. Hudson, long time no see." Ella awkwardly said as wheeled herself into the elevators after the whole eating disorder fiasco Dr. Hudson wasn't ranked high in her opinions but considering that he worked in the internal medicine department she didn't see he much around the hospital.

"I would ask how you're doing but it's kind of obvious." Dr. Hunter said motioning to Ella's bright blue cast.

"You know me, can't seem to stay out of this place." Ella joked but neither of them laughed and so the elevator ride was in silence until the doors opened and Dr. Hudson gave Ella a speedy goodbye. Pressing the button for the basement, it takes less than two minutes for Ella to get to the tunnels and manage to half successfully to navigate myself between two beds and take a pillow from one of them and put it behind her head. Ella also fiddled with the other leg thing on the wheelchair so both her legs are propped up now. Quite quickly Ella fell asleep but when she woke up Ella had a stiff neck and she just generally wanted to go home. Ella had been in this hospital for far too long today so wheeling herself to the elevator she went back up to the surgical floor in order to search for Mark but when she got there it seemed like something was going on as people were running around like headless chickens. And right in the middle of it was Mark, Derek, Alex and Pierce all standing in the middle of the surgical floor.

"Pierce explain it again…" Derek began slowly.

"Explain what? There's nothing to explain Derek!" Mark yelled before turning back to Pierce. "You lost my daughter! How the hell can you lose a fourteen year old girl in a wheelchair with a broken leg? I give you one simple instruction and that was to watch her for an hour!"

What the hell were you even doing?" Alex demanded.

"I told you he was an idiot, every intern here is an idiot except for George." Ella stated as she wheeled herself over to the group

"Ella, you're here!" Mark stated as he came over to her holding what she assumed to be her new best friends for the next few months; crutches. "You okay?"

"Well for the most part." Ella wearily replied as she rubbed her sore neck and looked down at her broken leg.

"Where have you been kiddo? We've got half the hospital looking for you… I told you to stay with the stupid intern."

"I was with him but then he left me to gossip with his friends and i overheard him telling loads of the other interns that he was stuck with Sloan's brat before Pierce upped and disappeared. Then I needed the toilet so I had to go find a disabled toilet and after that I was so tired because of the drugs and wheeling myself around that I went and took a nap in the tunnels." Ella explained.

"Dr. Sloan…" Pierce began.

"Don't even say a word because firstly you called my kid a brat which no one is allowed to do except for maybe me then you left her unattended before lying to me about it." Mark scolded which was boarding on the lines of yelling and Ella couldn't help but laugh. "Now I don't want to see you near me or my daughter plus the OR because you're going to be in the clinic doing every rectal exam that walks into the hospital for two week, isn't that right Dr. Karev."

"Absolutely."

"I told you what would happen if something happened to my daughter." Mark warned. "Now go get out of my sight."

Ella watched as Pierce ran off and Alex left moments later, no doubt to yell at the intern in a more public place leaving Mark and Derek to fuss over Ella again until Chief Webber joined them. "Dr. Sloan, I heard about what happened today and I'd like to offer my apologies to both yourself and Ella."

"Thanks chief, but I just want to take my kid home." Mark said as he affectionately rubbed Ella's shoulder. "My daughter needs me and I want to take care of her."

Derek looked at Ella and just gave her a look, which said I told you so but for once Ella was glad that he had been right for once about Mark and she had been wrong. Usually Ella saw Mark as the ultimate screw up but she saw for herself today that when she needed him the most Mark wasn't afraid to step up to the plate.


	16. Chapter 16

_"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend." _

_Albert Camus_

"Sorry about the mess, things have been kind of hectic the last few days as you can see I haven't gotten the chance to clean up much." Ella awkwardly stated as she let her friends into her apartment. Ever since she had broken her leg Ella had pretty much been cooped up inside as Mark wasn't allowing her to go back to school until the week after next. Ella found this to be stupid and pointless as when she eventually returned to school she's only have two weeks until school split for the summer. Ella had tried to point this out to Mark but it was falling on deaf ears.

"No problem Sloan, how you've been?" Alfie asked as he picked up Sid to prevent him from running out of the door. Sid had a been getting a little cabin fever recently with Ella being in the house all day and there was no doubt he was sick of seeing her. So he tended to get over excited when someone else came through the door. Even if it was Mark.

"Okay I guess, trying to get used to my lack of mobility and not dying of boredom but otherwise I'm doing great." Ella replied as the five of them including Sid made their way into the living room, which was a complete and utter mess.

"What's with the bed? I thought you had a bedroom." Luke asked pointing to Ella's folded out coach, which was untidily made and then in the direction of my bedroom.

"Oh I do, it's just that ever since the accident Mark's been staying over and will do so until he's convinced that I can take care of myself. The whole broken leg thing made him realize how vulnerable I apparently am. So he's been on this whole obsessive dad role and I'm letting him do his thing…" Ella said as she attempted to pull of the duvet of the couch and make up the bed.

"Sit down Sloan, we'll do that! If your not careful you'll end up making your leg worse!" Alfie stated as Poppy shuffled Ella into an armchair and the three of them stripped the sofa bed and had it folded back into a couch in mere moments.

"So your dad's staying here now?" Poppy asked.

"Only for another week, hence why all my stuff is all out here… I forced Mark into taking my room–"

"I thought you two didn't get on, so why give him the room? Apart from the fact that he technically owns the condo and pays all your bills…" Luke asked.

Ella bit her lip to prevent herself laughing at this, Luke did have a point but things had changed in the last couple of weeks. "Yeah usually we don't but we've been getting along these last few weeks and then he was there for me when I broke my leg and so when he decided to move in for a couple of weeks I gave him my room. Mark works long hours and is in surgery for most of the day and him sleeping on a sofa bed would be bad for his back and it's easier for me to sleep here."

"That's awfully nice of you…" Alfie told Ella who narrowed her eyes at him, it sounded like Alfie didn't believe she was capable of such a nice act. "So what are your plans for the summer Sloan?"

"Well I'll be here for the first week of summer break but then I'm flying to LA to visit my aunt for a week and then I fly back home to New York for five weeks and then I came back to Seattle for last few weeks and Mark's taking some time off so we can hang out and then of course the four of us will meet up and then high school here we come…" Ella replied in a sing song manner.

"Look at you Ms. Jet Setter!" Alfie retorted.

"You sure you're going to be able to fly on that leg?" Poppy questions.

"Oh yeah I checked with Callie, she's a friend of my dad's and an orthopedic surgeon and she's the one who always fixes me up and I have to do a few things but I'll be fine to fly. But if there are any problem my aunt in LA is a doctor as is my uncle in New York."

"So when are you going to be up and walking again, properly I mean?" Luke asked and Ella frowned.

"Well it's a bit hazy at the moment, it all depends on how my leg heals and physio but hopefully sometime in November but if not then it'll definitely be after Christmas or New Years at the latest." Ella wearily stated as she gave her leg a fleeting glance, she didn't like looking at it too much.

"That sucks."

"Yeah…" Ella murmured in agreement as she felt bad as Mark had been working his ass of to take care off her after his shifts at the hospital. When she first came home he was helping me with everything except for taking a shower as he enlisted her neighbor Moira to supervise her just incase. A few months ago when Ella had first arrived in Seattle she would have never believed that Mark was capable of behaving like this but he was getting his act together and Ella liked the fact that we wanted to be a proper dad to her.

"But on the upside that means you get to miss six months of gym." Poppy said being the ever-eternal optimist.

"That would be great if Sloan didn't like gym." Alfie retorted with a roll of his eyes. "But then again, most of the time she can't take part in gym because she's injured or sick which find to highly suspicious."

"Have my times have you gone to gym this year Ella?" Luke asked.

Ella scratched her head wearily, Alfie did have a point because first there was her arm and after that recovered she was ill with some chest infection and then there was a small gap before she broke my leg. "Six times, I think? Since I've come to Seattle I've become a bit accident prone."

"Ya think? I'm surprised to you can even dress yourself…" Luke began and Ella sheepishly laughed. "Please tell me you dressed yourself."

"Of course I can, all I've been wearing is track suit bottoms because my cast wasn't was to big to fit into all of my other pants but we've figured that out. So when it comes to dressing I'm okay but my neighbour Moira has to stand guard whenever I have a shower just in case I have some an accident." Ella replied with ease. "It's going to take time but I'm getting the hang of this."

Alfie scoffed before turning to Luke. "Twenty bucks says she can't go three weeks without hurting herself and ending back at the hospital…"


	17. Chapter 17

_"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape." _

_Charles Dickens_

Ella was very annoyed. Mark was supposed to be bringing her dinner but he hadn't shown up and so now she was a one man hunting party hunting him down but because of her big fat broken leg she was going at the pace of a snail. Which is why she was hobbling around the surgical wing for over twenty minutes before she found Mark sitting in a room by himself playing with an elastic band and a paper clip. Ella opened her mouth to lecture him about forgetting dinner and the fact that he should be working but as Ella opened her mouth to begin to lecture him she saw that his shoulders were slumped and he's oddly quiet. "Mark what's with the long face? What's wrong?" Ella asked prodding him with her crutch.

Mark turns to Ella before turning back to his makeshift toy. "It's nothing… never mind, don't worry about it kiddo."

Clearly something was wrong if Mark was acting all depressed and such. "I think it is something… talk to me Mark or else I'll keep pushing and I'm your kid, and that's what kids are good for."

"All of my surgeries were cancelled, I wasn't able to do a single operation today because the nurses wouldn't do them. The nurses won't work with me anymore, apparently they've gone on strike and because of that I can't perform any surgeries." Mark reluctantly replied.

Ella knew was probably because Mark's done something to piss off the nurses but seeing him this upset creates a tug in Ella's heart considering everything he's done for her lately, so she hobbled up behind him and placed her chin on his shoulders. "I'm sorry, that sucks."

Mark seems taken back at the affection Ella was showing him but he doesn't say anything instead he looked up at her and gives Ella a weary smile. "Thank you."

The two of them stayed where they were for a few minutes until Ella became restless and dragged Mark out of his seat to go for a walk around the hospital to try and clear his mind. But it didn't exactly work out as planned so instead Ella had Mark explain what had happened in the course of the day to have the nurses refuse to work with him and apparently it had something to do with a form. Eventually during the course of their walk, the two of them had to sit down in one of the hallways as Ella's arms were starting to hurt because of her crutches.

"They have no right to do this." Ella told Mark but he didn't reply to this which kind of upset and anger Ella as she didn't like seeing him like this. She knew that Mark was many things, such as a Casanova who liked sleeping around a lot but he was her dad and as much as Ella hated to admit this but she loved the man, despite how much of a fool he could be. Although she would never tell Mark this. But regardless Ella loved him of how much of a jackass that she often found him to be, the man was a brilliant surgeon and for the nurses to boycott his services was just irresponsible of them and Ella really wanted to yell at them for making her dad so upset. "This isn't right…"

"You should go home Ells… it's late." Mark said after a while. "Your tired and your leg needs a rest."

Ella shook her head. "I'm not leaving you like this, not until I know your going to be okay."

"What are you my daughter or my therapist?"

"Both, you know that Mark."

The two of them both fell into silence and it wasn't until Dr. Bailey came over and gently whacked Mark on the top of his head and told us to follow her. The three of them ended up at the nurses station on the surgical floor and Bailey sets about rounding up the nurses before addressing them all. "This man is a whore. Has always been a whore, will probably always be a whore. But, I mean, that's not a secret, he's not keeping it hidden. You all knew who he was before you got involved with him. And now you wanna be all, "Woe is me, he don't call me back, he's datin' other women." He's nasty. But he's a doctor here, and a pretty good one. So, let us all close our knees and get back to our job so he can get back to his job so he can help the people that really need it."

"Thanks Dr. Bailey." Mark tells her and Bailey rolls her eyes before walking off and Ella had to bite down on her lip in order to stop herself from laughing. That was perhaps the funniest thing she had ever seen in her life. Ella hadn't been expecting it but. But nevertheless the speech was a testament to the power Dr. Bailey has in this hospital as the nurses had murmured in agreement before returning back to work. After Bailey had left Mark turned to Ella. "Come on kiddo, let's take you home.

"Sounds like a plan." Ella replied but before the two of them could leave the hospital Ella had to wait for Mark to finished getting unchanged from his scrubs in the attendings locker room. But a few minutes later the two of them were ready to go and the two of them made their way over to the elevator. To Ella's surprise when the elevators doors open and Derek is already inside and they all exchange pleasant greetings until they fell into a comfortable silence.

"The most refined, professional, lady-like doctor in this hospital came to my defense tonight. Best she could come up with was "he's a whore." Mark told Derek in the elevator as he recounted today's events. "I'm a whore."

"I slept with her… the whole time I was thinking of Meredith." Derek replied and Ella assumed he was referring to Nurse Rose although she wished he hadn't said anything as the last thing she wanted to hear about was her uncle's sex life. "Whose the bigger whore?"

"Okay… now that's just weird and a tad bit creepy so I'm going to pretend like I never heard that because talking about sex with the two of you is something that I never want to do. Now the both of you need to cheer up like right away now… like seriously you two need to be happy." Ella said steering the conversation in a completely different direction.

"And why's that?" Mark asked.

"Thank you for asking, the reason you need to be happy is because the three of us are going to go out now and you will enjoy yourselves." Ella ordered and it managed to bring a smile to both Mark and Derek's face.

Uncle Derek gives me a look, which he often gives me when he's bemused by behaviour. "Really? We're taking you out right now?" Derek asked giving Ella a look that she knew to be the one he typically gave her when he was bemused by her behaviour.

"Yep – well maybe not seeing as these crutches are making my arms ache like crazy but how about you guys take me home and we can order take out? Preferably thai…" Ella began with a small smirk. "Because after a hard day's work there's nothing that the two of you like better than to hang out with me and cater to my every needs."

"Is that so?"

"Can you seriously say no to this face? It's frickin adorable and besides I have the defenseless, ailing and injured card to play and the two of you promised you'd take care of me and I'm pretty sure feeding me falls under that…" Ella replied in a sing song voice.

"You've been hanging out with Mark too much."

Normally Ella would have taken that to be some kind of insult but for once she actually saw it to be a good thing.


	18. Chapter 18

_"Time doesn't take away from friendship, nor does separation." _

_Tennessee Williams_

"Kiddo, are you sure want to do this?"

Ella scowled at Mark as he asked her whether she wanted to leave Seattle to go on holiday for what could be the tenth thousand time in this past week and now he was asking her just as she was about to step on a plane. Ella was on her way to LA to visit Addison and Mark had insisted on driving her to the airport. Ever since Ella had broken her leg mark had become a total psycho dad, obsessing and worry about any and everything to do with her, which had only gotten worse in the running up to Ella leaving town. As sweet as the whole thing was, it was kind of getting on her last nerves. Derek said it was all down to Mark having separation issues, which made Ella laugh as mere months ago Mark hadn't seen her in two years but she was willing to admit things had changed since she first arrived in Seattle. "Mark…"

"I just need to be sure, you know it's not too late to back out." Mark reasoned.

"Yes I am sure and it's great that you're worried about me Mark but you have to let me go, you've been busting your ass these last few weeks taking care of me. But you need some time to take care of yourself and relax so don't worry Mark I will be fine just focus on yourself…" Ella assured him but a part of her was shocked that the words were coming out of her mouth as she wouldn't have been saying that three months ago. It was strange how things had changed since she arrived in Seattle but it a way it felt right as Mark was the only parent Ella had left.

"I'd believe that if you weren't sitting in front of me with a broken leg Ella." Mark said and Ella can't help but roll her eyes. Mark still wasn't convinced that she was capable of taking care of herself despite the fact he had moved out of her condo and because of my leg he had made sure that she had to wheeled on and off the plane for some ridiculous reason and some poor sap was going to have to carry Ella's crutches for her.

"Mark you should be looking forward to the fact that I won't be on your case twenty four seven, I'm going be gone for six weeks and in that time you can go sleep with whoever you want to your heart's content. In fact I encourage it… I say this with love but seriously Mark you need to get a life, the only two things you seem to have in your life is me and work… and that's pretty sad for a thirty four year old man."

"You're mean." Mark stated but he can't hide the smirk on his face and it's not to hard to see why as Mark liked Ella now where as before he thought of her as his annoying little problem.

Ella laughed this off. "Seriously Mark, I'll be fine and if anything happens Aunt Addie will make sure I'm taken care of and so will Uncle Sam… I'll be in good hands. C'mon your sending me to two relatives who both happen to be doctors."

"I'll ask you one last time, are you sure you want to go?"

"You're starting to sound like Uncle Derek." Ella commented referring to their exchange, usually Mark was the one sending Ella on her way without even looking back and it was Derek who'd be checking if she was sure about going.

"I'll tell him you said that."

"And to answer your question, yes I am sure, now what about you? Uncle Derek will be here to help you in any crisis you may have while I'm gone and Conrad is taking care of Sid so everything is fine on the Seattle front. But is there anything you need before I go?" Ella questioned.

"Perhaps a drink."

"Well I can't help you with that, so can I go on my holiday?" Ella asked and Mark sighed before handing Ella her ticket, but as she went to take it he wouldn't let go. Mark was very reluctant to let Ella go but she was adamant that she was going to LA but then the thought occurred to her as to why Mark didn't want to let go. He probably thought that Ella was never coming back, as when she first arrived at Seattle she kept telling him she wanted to go home. When Ella was at boarding school Mark restricted where she could go home and he kept a hold on to Ella's passport but even then she managed to escape. Now he wasn't restricting anything and so Ella could stay in New York permanently and never come back. "Mark…"

"Fine…" Mark says letting go of the ticket.

"There's nothing for you to worry about I'm coming back Mark, I'll be back in six weeks so this isn't a goodbye Mark it's more like a see you soon kind of thing." Ella stated in an effort to cheer up her father who seemed to be in a gloomy mood despite his best efforts to hide it albeit unsuccessfully.

"Promise?"

"You have my word." Ella promised as she looked at the ticket to see where she'd be sitting. "My tickets are first class, right?"

"Right kiddo."

"Miss Sloan, are you ready?" A man with a deep voice asked Ella as he and another man approach her and Mark, both wearing the airline uniform. No doubt they were the personal escort that Mark had arranged. Like Ella had previously mentioned, Mark was being psycho dad and he was pretty good at it.

"Sure." Ella began before turning to Mark and waving. "Bye Mark I'll see you in six weeks and try to have some fun whilst I'm gone! I don't want to come back and find you still in the state that I've left you."

Mark handed over Ella's crutches to one of the men as the other one is going to wheel her onto the plane but he then caught herby surprise by placing a kiss on her forehead. "Bye kiddo, have fun and stay out of trouble… and I want a phone call when you land each time and a phone call at least once every week, is that understood?"

"I got it."

The two of them waved at each other before Ella was wheeled away to board on the plan and as she was being wheeled away she peered back to see Mark one last time. As weird as this sounded she actually missed him already and it was going to be weird not seeing him for six weeks as he was such a big part of her life. But the two of them needed a break for each other and Ella was looking forward to going to LA and then going back home to New York.


	19. Chapter 19

_"Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go." _

_Sarah Dessen_

Six weeks being away from Seattle felt like a lifetime so when Ella's time in New York had come to an end, she was more than happy to go back to Seattle. It wasn't like she didn't love New York anymore because she did and it would always be her home but Seattle was also her home too now. That observation surprised Ella but not as much as the fact how much she found herself missing Mark during her time away, this last couple of months he had really stepped up for her and was acting like an actual parent. Which is why Ella called him and told him she was coming back a day later, she figured that she'd come back the day she was originally going to and surprise him. So when Ella arrived at the surgical ward she paged Mark and a couple of minutes later he appeared at the nurse's station where Ella was waiting for him. "Hey dad…

The look on Mark's face was priceless, it practically lit up. Ella don't know whether it was because he was actually surprised to see her or that she had just called him dad to his face for the first time in years but he looked ecstatic. "W-what are you doing here Ella? Your not supposed to be back home until tomorrow evening…" Mark stammered

"Yeah I lied about that. I thought I'd surprise you." Ella admitted as she struggled to stop laughing at Mark's face. "So are you?"

"I am surprised, very surprised and look at you kiddo, you've gotten taller and your leg, your not in the cast anymore your using a moonboot." Mark tells Ella as he hugged her and she can tell the use of the word 'dad' has knocked him off and as such he's bumbling like an idiot. It was rather adorable.

"That was Uncle Sam's doing and I just went along with it but I feel better, it's easier to manage with and it's helping with my leg so I just have to wear this for a few more weeks and then hopefully I won't be needing the boot of these crutches any longer."

"Well that's good, so there's been no trouble with it? You've been resting it and not putting weight on it…" Mark questioned.

"Yes dad, you told me not to ten million times and if I got the same lecture about taking care of my leg from Callie, Uncle Derek, Aunt Addie, Uncle Sam and the ortho doctor at Lennox Hill. I've been taking care of it, don't worry…" Ella began before looking at Mark who still kind of out of it. "Your freaking out about this dad thing, aren't you?"

Mark shook his head. "No I'm not."

Ella narrowed her eyes at Mark, she knew her father better then he knew himself and the man simply could not lie to her. Ella could read Mark Sloan like a book and he was in denial. "Yes you are Mark, I know you and your freaking and if you don't want me to call you dad, then it's fine. I'm not fussed about calling you Mark, I just thought with everything you've done for me I figured that I should start calling you dad again–"

" –And I am your dad and I'm being addressed as such, so carry on. Tell what you've been up to this last week. It's boring here, Derek's now boring because he's building a house with Meredith and being boring." Mark says in an exaggerated manner, which caused Ella to laugh.

"I know… weird, right? I was telling Aunt Addie about it when I was in LA and neither of us can get our heads around it but if anyone is going to build a house, then it's Uncle Derek. But anyway I just got up to the usual; we went to Coney Island for the day, checked out the latest stuff at the Guggenheim and the other major galleries. It's nothing new really and we kind of had to take my leg into consideration. By the way Aunt Star sends her love as does your father." Ella sarcastically said as they both knew that Ella's aunt isn't the biggest fan of Mark's not to mention that Mark's relationship with his dad at all. He's frequently told Ella that he would have stopped talking to him years ago if it wasn't for her. Somehow Mark's father found finding out Ella was in New York and as such she ended up having dinner with her grandfather once a week. Not that Ella didn't love her Grandpa Sloan but he could be very uptight and emotionally distant at times compared to Ella's Grandpa Perry and Grandma Perry who were very fun loving and affectionate.

Mark grimaced. "My dad… urgh!"

"I don't know why your complaining, I was the one who had to see them but it wasn't actually too bad and Grandpa Sloan brought me loads of things which he's having shipped over. However he was annoyed that I'm in a public school but he says not to worry as I'm still capable of getting into Yale and he knows people there." Ella replied, she found it ironic that Mark had issues with his father and she in turn had issues with him.

"How many times have I told him that I don't want you going to Yale? God the man is so annoying… Lemme guess he mentioned the trust fund and the college fund again?"

"He says you can't be trusted when it comes to my future and it's his job as my grandfather to make sure that I have financial security and that instead of worrying about money I instead focus on my education. He also mentioned that he's going to change the age I can access my trust to twenty five because Grandpa believes I'm more mature then you'll ever be." Ella noted in mild amusement, if her and Mark were dysfunctional him and his parents were something else entirely.

"Right kiddo. I've made an executive decision as your father and that is we don't see my parents until you graduate at least. Phone calls, birthday and Christmas cards is more than enough, so that is all the contact that we're going to have with them." Mark decided.

"Dad…" Ella wearily say as she thought Mark was being a tad bit dramatic considering after his father, Derek and herself were the only other family that he had. And Ella knew from personal experience that you couldn't exactly choose your family.


	20. Chapter 20

_"You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it." J.K. Rowling_

Ella had six irreplaceable people in her life here in Seattle and that was Mark, Derek, Luke, Poppy, Alfie and Sid, without them then this would just be another placed that she had lived. Ella thought she was one of those people who could live anywhere if she just had friends. New York she could, Seattle she was currently and Brewster's she didn't. It was odd for Ella to think how she had been here for almost six months and how her life had changed so much since she had arrived here.

Ella was happy, she had friends and most importantly her and Mark were getting along and attempting to be a real family although they were still living in two separate places as they didn't want to mess up a good thing. But it was funny how quickly things turned from good to bad. It all started a few weeks after Ella had came home from New York, her and Poppy were at Ella's apartment getting ready for movie night and waiting for Luke and Alfie to arrive. When they didn't show on time that's when the two of them started to worry and after twenty minutes they got really worried. It wasn't like them not to show. And then Ella's house phone went off and Poppy picked it up

"Ella that was your doorman, he says that Alfie and Luke are downstairs and they want us to come downstairs. He also says that it's urgent." Poppy told Ella which was rather odd but nevertheless she grabbed her keys, phone, crutches, purse and stuffed them into a bag. Ella figured she'd see what's up and by the time her and Poppy had convinced them to stay they could go get a pizza from down the corner.

When the two of them got downstairs to the front entrance where the doorman on shift Garrett usually stood, Ella saw something she didn't quite expect to see. Instead she saw her too friends without smiles on their faces looking like pretty back. Alfie had cuts on his face and is supporting Luke who seems to be all over the place and when he manages to lift his head, it's pretty obvious what's happened. That they've been beaten up but Luke looks like he's taken a really bad beating. "Oh my days…" Ella began.

"Miss Sloan, like I was saying to your friends I think it's best that we call an ambulance and the police." Garrett told Ella and all she could do was nod her head in agreement as words literally failed her.

"No-no police or hospital." Luke slurred.

"Alfie, what the hell happened?" Poppy asked.

"W-we were on our way here and these guys just came out of nowhere and jumped us, for some reason they didn't take anything but they went for Luke for some reason. When it was over, he refused to let me call anyone and so I figured I'd bring him here." Alfie explained who was barely holding it together.

Ella looked at Luke and she just knew that there was something wrong. And she didn't mean the getting beat up bit, he had all these cuts and there is blood all down his face and his eyes were unequal. Something was really wrong here, Ella may only be fourteen years old but she has a world class plastic surgeon ENT and neurosurgeon for a father and an uncle. "Garrett, go flag us a cab…"

"Ella…" Alfie slowly began.

"We have to." Ella grimly replied avoiding saying the word hospital as that would just freak Luke out even more and they really didn't need that. Moments later Garrett returned with a cab and when the foursome got there the driver looked at them skeptically and there's no doubt he doesn't want to take them. Coming from New York, Ella knew that cab drivers only spoke money and given the amount of money she's just offered the cab driver, he takes the fare but making sure Ella handed it over before they went anywhere. Alfie, Luke and Poppy were in the back whilst Ella hobbled over to the front. "I will give you two hundred bucks if you drive as fast as you can to Seattle Grace Hospital. The emergency room."

"My head… it hurts…" Luke groaned

"E-Ella?" Poppy wearily calls out and they all knew that wasn't a good sign.

"Alfie I need you to call his parents, Poppy just talk to him and ask him memorable things like his birthday and address. Whatever you do make sure he stays awake and alert. I'm going to call for help." Ella rambled as she took her phone out of her bag and paged Mark 999, moments later she get an incoming calling from a number she didn't recognize. "Hello?"

"Ella, what is it? What's wrong?" Mark demanded.

"D-dad, where are you? I need you help… something has happened, there's blood… I'm on my way to the h-hospital and I need you help now..." Ella blurted out down the phone as she looked to the back of the cab to see Alfie also on the phone and Poppy trying to keep Luke talking.

"Ells, I'm in surgery at the moment… how bad is it?" Mark asked and Ella bit her lip in order to stop herself from crying and instead of replying to Mark she just hung up the phone as he couldn't help her if he was in surgery. Ella hung up just in time to hear Luke unable to recall his birthday. Ella knew that things had gone from being very bad to extremely bad. Ella wasn't one for religion but she prayed to god that Derek was free when she paged him and just like Mark he called her back almost instantaneously.

"Ella, what's the emergency…"

"Uncle Derek I need your help… Are you work?" Ella began, avoiding Derek's question as there was no point in telling him what happened if he wasn't at work to help her. "Are you in surgery?"

"I'm at the hospital but I'm not in surgery… Sweetheart tell me what's wrong, your worrying me now Ella." Derek replied and Ella could have cried and the news.

"Something's happened and I'm on my way to the hospital with my friends, two of them have been hurt but one's really bad. Uncle Derek, he says his head hurts and he can't remember his birthday… he can't focus… something is wrong and I need your help." Ella sniffled down the phone; she had Derek so everything was going to be fine she told herself. She may not have her dad but she had Derek so that was okay.

"Ella, where are you exactly?" Derek asked.

"H-he didn't want to come but we made him get into a cab, we'll be at the ER in less than five minutes… Uncle Derek I really need your help." Ella whimpered.

"I'm on my way to the ER now. I will be waiting for you to get here but until then I need you to stay on the phone with me and tell me everything that you know and everything you see." Derek instructs and Ella complied, she knew the more information that Derek had, worked in Luke's favor as it made making a diagnosis slightly easier. So Ella stayed on the phone until they arrived at the ER and Derek was there waiting for them just like he promised along with Meredith and Dr. Bailey.

"Uncle Derek…" Ella began.

"I'll take care of him." Derek assured Ella as he helps load Luke onto a gurney before heading inside. Ella, Poppy and Alfie followed them but stopped short of heading into the trauma room and instead they just stood there not sure of what to do with themselves. Until Izzie approached them and offered to clean up Alfie's injuries and at that point Ella had just completely zoned out. It was like the world was going by in slow motion and she could only watch as everything passed her by.


	21. Chapter 21

_"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love." _

_Sophocles_

Poppy and Ella stood and kept one on Alfie and one eye Luke who was being worked on by Derek in one of the trauma rooms. It was scary for Ella to think that half an hour ago they were waiting for the boys to show up at Ella's apartment so they could have movie night and now two of them was seriously hurt. What really bothered Ella about this was who would want to bother Luke and Alfie? They were nice boys who didn't deserve any of this. "Ella… he's going to be okay isn't her, Luke's going to be okay right?"

"Yeah… He's going to be okay Poppy, my Uncle Derek is the best of the best. He'll take good care of Luke." Ella replied with more confident than she actually felt at the moment. She had no idea what was going on or the extent of Luke's injuries but she didn't say that to avoid freaking Poppy out even more.

"Ella!" Hearing someone call her name distracted Ella from watching Alfie argue with Izzie about getting an x-ray and moments later she saw Mark running into the ER and over to her with his surgical cap still on. At first it takes Ella a while to understand what's going on as Mark is talking really fast. But then it finally clicks in and Ella finally understands why Mark is freaking out and checking her over. She had blood on her clothes, Ella knows that it's not hers but Mark doesn't. He thinks she's the one whose been hurt and he left surgery because she thought he was in trouble. "Kiddo, are you okay?"

"I-I…" Ella attempted but fell short.

"Talk to me kiddo."

"It's not me dad… it's my friend Luke. You have to help Uncle Derek save him, I can't lose another person I care about dad." Ella said pointing in the direction of the trauma room that Derek was working on and she gave Mark a pleading look in hopes he could see how important Luke was to her. Eventually Mark nods and heads over to the trauma room just as Derek is wheeling out Luke to go somewhere.

"That's your dad, huh?" Alfie questioned and Ella just nodded. "You really do look like him Sloan."

"Everyone says that and if you say that to my dad, it's like the highest compliment you could give him." Ella slowly replied as Luke's parents chose that precise moment to come rushing in and then immediately looked at the three teenagers wanting answers. But they didn't know anything, however they all got answers in the form of Mark. He told them that Luke was being taken upstairs for an MRI. Mark got an intern to take Luke's parents to Derek, but stayed with Ella and her friends to keep an eye on them and do Alfie's stitches. "Dad this Poppy Messing and Alfie Mason, two of my friends from school, guys this is my dad… Dr. Mark Sloan."

"It's nice to meet you Dr. Sloan." Poppy said as Mark motioned for Ella to sit down in order for her to rest her legs.

"You kids need anything else? Any more injuries that I need to know about… If not your parents contact details would be a good place to start not to mention you'll all have to talk to the police." Mark said.

"We're good Dr. Sloan."

The four of them sat there for god knows how long until Meredith came and found them to tell them that Luke was being prepped for surgery, she says something about a depressed skull fracture before leaving to go scrub in. Mark moves them all to the waiting area of the surgical ward but when they arrived he left Poppy and Alfie with their parents along with Luke's parents before leading Ella off somewhere. It was hard for Ella to keep up with him given that it was late, she was tired not to mention that the condition of her leg meant that she had to walk slowly given that she was still on crutches. "Where are we going?

"You'll see kiddo." Mark vaguely replied.

Ella didn't argue with her father instead she followed Mark until they walked into a room that was overlooking the OR and Ella realized that they were in the gallery of OR 1. Ella allowed Mark to lead her over to the large windows and she saw Derek standing there in his surgical down, donning his favourite ferryboat scrub cap. Ella watched him prepare to begin until he looked at Luke's sleeping form before looking up to Ella. "It's a beautiful night to save lives."

Hearing the sound of her infamous phrase, which he often said before surgery for good luck really did it in for Ella and before she knew it she was crying. Not sobbing and gut wrenching tears but crying nonetheless. "Hey kiddo, what's wrong…?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that tonight's just been terrifying, I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life." Ella admitted

"Join the club, that phone call of your freaked me out kiddo, I thought you were really hurt and then you ended the call and left me hanging and my mind could only wonder. Every and any possible situation was running through my head but thankfully your okay for the most part. Lat thing we need is you back in the hospital again after the amount of admissions you've racked up since you've been here." Mark replied, turning the last part of his sentence into a joke in order to lighten up the mood.

"Sorry about that, I was panicking… Luke was hurt and I knew he needed help and in my mind I immediately thought of you and then when you said you were in surgery I called Uncle Derek. I didn't mean to make you worry so much." Ella apologized, thinking of how worried Mark must have been when he called and then have her end the call and turn up in the ER with blood on her clothes. She didn't mean to worry him so much. Ella and Mark stayed in the gallery for the first twenty minutes of Luke's surgery before heading back to the waiting area of the surgical ward where the police were waiting to talk to them all The rest of the night was long, so the details of it were rather foggy. Ella didn't remember the finer details but she remembered the waiting, talking to the police. But Mark never left Ella's side once. He was doing his job as her dad and for that she was eternally grateful.


	22. Chapter 22

_"Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express." _

_Joseph Addison_

Mark sat in the hospital waiting room next to Ella waiting on news on her friend who Derek was operating on. He had suggested that they go home and wait so her leg could get some rest but Ella kept refusing, stating that she had to be here ad that she wasn't going anywhere until she knew her friend was okay. Mark decided to let her have her own way as it had been a long night for the both of them not to mention stressful. He almost had a heart attack when he was on the phone with Ella earlier and she was in a state, going on about trouble and blood. When he left the OR to go find her, there was another shock when he saw his little girl covered in blood, although thankfully it wasn't her's but it did scare the crap out of him as Ella had been hurt so many times since she had gotten here.

The first time Mark had saw his daughter in over two years, he had to admit that he was shocked to see her because Mark didn't exactly tell her he was in Seattle but it was her appearance that has shocked him more. Her long hair sat just above her shoulders, her arm was in a sling and by the looks of it she hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. He's later find out that she had dislocated her arm because she was hit by cab after running away from the boarding school he had sent her to which apparently made her life hell to no ends. If that wasn't worse Ella had almost collapsed and further examination revealed that she was underweight and suffering from exhaustion. Then the broken leg came.

That was kind of the pivotal point in their relationship, when Ella broke her leg it gave Mark a chance to step up and do the right thing for once because normally he didn't. But this time he did. There was no secret about it that he was the type of guy who had no business raising a little girl, let alone by himself but here he was. Trying like hell to make things right from all the mistake he had made.

"Kiddo, you want anything?" Mark questioned breaking the silence that had been engulfing them for the last twenty minutes.

"No thank you dad. I'm fine." Ella quietly replied.

Dad. It was still taking Mark time to adjust to be called dad again as Ella had stopped addressing him by his parental title after he sent her off to boarding school and he didn't blame her in the slightest. But when she came back from New York early to surprise him, she called him dad and it took him by surprise. A pleasant one but a surprise nonetheless as he wasn't expecting her to ever call him dad again. At times Mark thought he was too young to be a father to a fourteen year old girl but hearing his daughter call him dad again made it okay. The last thing he ever wanted to do was become a father especially at the age of twenty but here he was almost fifteen years later, the proud father of an amazing baby girl. Although it had taken him a while to comprehend the fact that he was going to be a father to a baby girl.

"You need anything just let me know." Mark replied and Ella nodded before going back to staring ahead.

Mark found it hard to believe that his baby girl was going to turn fifteen in a couple of months. It made him feel older than he actually was but then again he supposed being a parent did that to you especially when you became one at the age of twenty. But it wasn't too bad given that he ended up with a decent kid who looked just like him except for her eyes. Ella had her mother's green eyes and was similar to Sabrina in terms of personality except for that temper of hers. That she got from her Aunt Star. The way Ella held herself was very much like Sabrina and reminded him in a way of his mother without being the stuck up and emotionally distant woman his mother was.

Pulling his wallet out of his lab coat, Mark opened it and proceeded to pull out an old photo of Ella, it was taken when she was four and still thought the world of Mark, with her pig tails and toothy grin as she sat on a chair and had one of his hefty medical textbooks open and sitting on his lap.

"Wow…" Ella said and Mark turned to see that she was looking at the photo in his hand. "That is a seriously old picture dad."

There was the dad nostalgia again and Mark couldn't help but smile. "I like it, hence me keeping onto it."

"How old was I?" Ella questioned

"Four and a half. You were a funny little thing back then from what I can recall. You may not remember but I wasn't around as much then as I was in my second year of med school and my schedule was hectic so I couldn't be with you as much as I was when you got older. Mom was really great about it…" Mark began.

"Mom?"

Mark watched as Ella's ears piped up in interest about her mother, they didn't speak about her much as that it was something she only really chose to talk to Derek about but when they did he always called Sabrina 'mom' for Ella's sake. In an attempt to be somewhat normal as Ella was perfectly aware of the fact that her parents weren't exactly seeing each when she was conceived. "When I wasn't out or at classes she'd bring you over to my apartment twice a week so we could spend time together. Some of the times I'd be studying so we couldn't actually do anything but you'd come sit in my lap whilst I was reading and turned the pages for me." Mark reminisced.

"Really?"

"For a four year old you had some patience but even you go bored so you often went off to help mom clean my apartment. Mostly you deflected to Derek if he was there who was always happy to drop whatever he was doing for you. Back then I was convinced that you loved Derek more than me. It actually sounds stupid that I, back when I was twenty four was jealous that four year old seemed to prefer my best friend than her own father. Derek got a few chuckles out of that…"

"I remember back when you were an intern mom would bring me over to the hospital to see you and we'd make you a pack lunch before we left and you were always so happy and excited about it even though it did contain badly made sandwiches…" Ella said.

"You remember that?" Mark questioned in surprise and Ella nodded. "I miss those times."

"I miss mom." Ella sadly said and Mark chose to wrap an arm around Ella's shoulders, he remembered all to well Sabrina's fight with lung cancer. He recalled Sabrina showing up at his door one afternoon in tears after she had been diagnosed, then sitting Ella down and explaining how mom was sick. Mark went about getting the best doctors money could buy and surprisingly his father footed the bill as Papa Sloan was very fond of Sabrina and wanted the best for the mother of his only grandchild. He was with her when they found that she was no longer responding to treatment and the cancer was getting worse. That was something that he'd never forget, that and telling his ten year old daughter that her mom wasn't getting any better and eventually that she had died.

"I miss her too." Mark admitted as whilst he never intended to get her pregnant he did love her, well he wasn't in love with her but he loved Sabrina Perry as much as any man should love the mother of his child. She was one of the few people that actually took him seriously especially when he wanted to go into plastic surgery.

"Being here waiting reminds me of when she was sick and have all those surgeries. I remember being in the hospital waiting room and mom had just died and you came out of her room, came over and crouched down in front of me and told me that she was gone." Ella wearily said.

"You were so confused and scared that you were holding on to for dear life, just wouldn't let go and Derek asked you why and you whispered that you were holding onto me so I wouldn't leave you too. You moved into my apartment a few days after the funeral and I put you to bed just like I would whenever you stayed over and an hour later I came back to check on you and you were gone. I was running round the apartment looking for you and then I found you in my bed with the tv on along with all the lights. It was the same thing I did when I was your age…"


	23. Chapter 23

_"...the love, respect, and confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts." _

_Louisa May Alcott_

Mark sat in Ella's kitchen eating up a bowl of cereal as his daughter slept, it had taken Mark a while to convince Ella to come home and get some sleep as the teenager was adamant about staying with her friend regardless of how tired she was or the need for her to rest her leg. Eventually Ella agreed to his request which was a good thing as by the time Mark had opened Ella's front door, she was practically dead on her feet because she had been so exhausted because of the events of last night. Knowing Ella was safely tucked up in bed, made Mark feel as ease after what could easily be described as the worst twenty minutes of his life. He knew Ella didn't mean to worry him but she did and Mark didn't like it at all. Mark was finishing up his cereal when there was a knock on the front door, rising from his seat Mark made his way over and opened the door to Derek who had promised to come over when his swift was done for an update. When Derek had come out of surgery and told them that it had gone well Ella had started crying again and it had taken both him and Derek to calm her down.

"Derek."

"Mark."

"How's Luke doing?" Mark asked.

"He's good, I'm being kept up to date with Luke and there's been no change so far, his vitals are stable and everything is looking okay but we'll have to wait and see if there is any lasting damage from the attack." Derek replied.

"That's great." Mark truthfully said as the last thing he wanted was for Ella to lose one of the first friends she had in years. Mark could remember her pleading with him to help save her friend as she didn't want to lose another person she cared about. Losing her mother had a deeply profound effect on Ella and Mark didn't want to see Ella go through something like that again anytime soon. Ella deserved happiness, not more sadness after everything that she had been through.

"How's she doing?" Derek asked as they stood in the living room and looked over to where Ella was sleeping soundly on her pull out couch with Sid curled up next to her on the bed. Ella had refused to take her own bed, insisting that Mark take it given everything that he had done for her. The sentiment was sweet and well intentioned but Mark didn't take it up and Ella had crashed out on the pull out couch before he could do anything to stop her.

"Ok, I thought that there might be an appearance of a night terror due to the traumatic situation of yesterday but they haven't come back which I'm relieved about. The last thing I want is for Ella to start having them again when she's been free of them for the last three months. Other than that she's worried about her friend, I only met Ells friends last night because of what happened but it's clear she really cares about them. Their a big part of her life here…" Mark noted before letting out a sigh. "For some one so young, Ella worries about a lot things especially the people she cares about."

"That's one of the things I've always loved about her, the fact that the people she cares about is always at the forefront of her mind. Just like Sabrina." Derek noted and Mark couldn't help but agree with the comparison, whilst Ella looked a lot like him she was very similar to her mother and it just improved with age.

"She's grown so much, both recently in regards to how she's changed since she came to Seattle and overall. Sometimes I look at Ella and I can't believe that she's the little girl that I used to carry on my shoulders or run around after. I can't believe she's turning fifteen in a couple of months, sometimes it feels like only yesterday that she was a small kid…" Mark replied.

"We've seen Ella grow before our very own eyes but I don't remember growing older during that time and yet your daughter has grown into a beautiful young woman. Next thing you know Ella will be getting married and having kids of her own…"

"Don't remind me." Mark wearily said as whilst he begrudgingly accepted the fact that not only was he getting older but his daughter was too. That didn't mean he was ready to accept the idea of his little girl being all grown up and having her own family. After all Ella was only fifteen and Mark was far too young to be a grandfather and he'd do anything it took to prevent that from happening during the next ten years, at least. Mark was going to make sure that Ella had graduated from both high school and college before she even thought about having children.

Derek gently nudged Mark. "Come on? Are you seriously telling me that you haven't thought about any of that? You must have thought about walking her down the aisle."

"On occasion but with Ella I try to not think too far into the future, I try to stick to the present because I don't know where the two of us will be in our relationship when it comes to those momentous father daughter moments. Ella calling me dad again is a miracle within itself…" Mark noted recalling how Ella had went a year and a half addressing him by his given name or various derogative terms instead of dad.

"One that you no doubt appreciate, It's been a couple of weeks now Mark but I still see your eyes light up when Ella calls you dad." Derek pointed out and Mark couldn't help but smile.

"It's still taking some time to get used to, I'll hear her calling me dad and for a moment I think that it's my mind playing tricks on me but it's not. Ella's really calling me dad again, before she did I had kind of accepted the fact that she'd probably never call me that again. But I under estimated Ella and her capacity to forgive…"

"I know that I don't have to say this Mark but if you screw this up…" Derek wearily began, choosing not to finish that sentence and trail off as they both knew what would happen if Mark did something that in anyway resembled the stupidly of what he did two years ago when he sent her to boarding school or worse. If Mark did something to push Ella over the edge like before then she'd go, Ella would leave and Mark would never see her again. When Ella had agreed to stay in Seattle she had made that pretty clear to them both. There would be no worrying about graduations, weddings and grandchildren as Ella would cut him out of her life for good.

Mark knew that he wasn't the best father in the world and he knew that he had made several mistakes and was bound to make some more. But Mark was going to try his damn hardest to not to screw up so bad that he'd risk losing his daughter because he loved her and he liked having her around.


	24. Chapter 24

_"I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom." _

_Umberto Eco_

Ella wasn't used to being able to depend on Mark and be able to go to him in emergencies given that he was Mark Sloan. Plastic surgeon and womanizer extraordinaire who had sent his only child to the boarding school from hell and left her there without a second glance. Mark also wasn't pushing her about getting help about what happened at Brewster's anymore which she was thankful about. She had only just stopped having the night terrors and nightmares about that place and having to relieve everything that she was trying so desperately hard to forget in some session with a shrink was not something that Ella wanted. He was trying his hardest to make everything up to Ella but a small part of her was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to go back to how he was before she came to Seattle. But Ella spent most of her time trying not dwell on this especially now as she walked into the restaurant where she was meeting Mark for dinner. He had called Ella earlier and asked if he could take her out for dinner to spend some time together and Ella wasn't going to say no since he was clearly going to be paying.

"Hey Ells!" Mark warmly getting up as Ella made her way over to their table and he helped Ella into her chair.

"Thanks dad."

"So how's your day been kiddo?" Mark asked as he sat back down.

"Almost tripped over Sid this morning but other than that it's been very good, I went to the hospital to visit Like with Poppy and Alfie who met me there. He's doing really well according to Uncle Derek and hopefully he'll be able to home at the end of the week, Monday at the latest. So that's really good news although he may miss the first couple of school but Luke's recovery is the most important thing." Ella explained as she picked up the menu and began glancing it over to decide what she wanted to eat.

"I'm glad your friend is doing better but what about you? How's the leg doing?" Mark questioned.

"Pain in my ass but it's been like that way ever since I broke the damn thing, I can't wait to be out of this damn boot and be able to walk like a normal person again." Ella admitted. "So Grandma Bea called me this afternoon…"

"She did huh, what did your Grandma Beatrice want?" Mark asked trying to act all nonchalant but Ella could see right through him.

"Oh nothing much it was the same old stuff as usual, she wanted to know how I was doing along with my leg and reminded me about doing my back to school shopping. Grandma Bea offered to do it for me but I said I could do it, I need to start walking instead of relying on my crutches as I have physio soon. After that we talked about trivial stuff for a while. Grandma told me that she loved me and was always missing me and then mom came up. Specifically mom's birthday which is this Saturday, she thought it may be difficult which why she called. I also believe it's why you brought me out to dinner, so we could talk about." Ella causally explained as she put down her menu to look at Mark who had the guiltiest look on his face.

"How'd you know?" Mark eventually asked.

"Because I'm a genius, not to mention I can track of the year and the sudden in flux of phone calls I've been receiving from my family is a tell tell sign. Plus Uncle Derek took me to the IHOP for breakfast this morning which he has done in years and he only takes me there when he wants to talk about something serious with me or about mom. There's nothing serious that the two of us need to talk about the moment about so I knew this was about mom." Ella said with a bemused mile, today was Wednesday and in a few days it would be her mom Sabrina's 40th birthday if she were still alive.

"With your mom's birthday coming I just wanted to see how you were doing as we've not really talked about her since you came home. And her birthday and the anniversary of her death will the first definitely we spend together since you went away." Mark awkwardly said and Ella could tell he was treading lightly around her and trying his hardest to vaguely mention her time away without mentioning Brewster's.

"It's been almost three years Mark, I'm not going to get upset and start crying over what happened to mom. It sucked her getting cancer and I won't pretend like I don't miss because I do and I think I will always miss her and as much as her dying hurt me I have a lot to be thankful for. Last thing mom want to become sick and then become terminal but she made those precious last months she had with me last; everyone did. I have no sad memories of that time I had with her, I knew mom was going to die so I appreciated all that time I had with her. Some people don't get a chance to say goodbye as their lived ones are gone in an instant but I got months to prepare myself to say goodbye to mom." Ella said referring to how her mom was told her cancer had become terminal about a year after her initial diagnosis. After that had happened everything had been making her mom as comfortable as possible but all Ella's mom wanted was to spend time with Ella and make sure her daughter was happy.

"What is it? You're not telling me something." Mark said signaling the waiter that they weren't ready to order yet and Ella was impressed that Mark was picking up on her behaviour.

"Mom dying sucked."

"I know it did."

"Yes but that's not what I really meant, you explained to me why mom became terminal as did Uncle Derek and Uncle Sam. I kind of understand why the lung cancer killed her despite her smoking a day in her life and I knew it was coming. I thought I'd be ready for it but when it happened I wasn't. I could never prepare myself for life without mom because she was my entire life. Sabrina Perry was the best mother I could have ever hoped for you dad, you did the good think knocking her up." Ella quipped with a small smile.

"Thank you, I think…" Mark quietly replied. "But go on Ella."

"It took me a while to come to terms with what happened to mom, I think it would have taken less than a year if I had stayed in New York. When I was away and going through all that stuff and my other issues at that place, at night when I was in bed I used to pray to mom to give me the strength to survive. There were some really dark days there and it was thinking of mom that manage to pull me through those days when I was at my lowest, I'm not really religious but it must have worked seeing as me I'm here. Kind of makes sense in a way, mom was the strongest person I knew so it makes sense she gave me the strength to survive what I went through." Ella said talking about Brewster's for the first time in months but she couldn't refer to it by it's name. Just saying the name of that hell hole made her upset and remember everything that had happened. Ella could talk about it briefly but she could never bring herself to fully talk about the horrors that she had experienced there.

"Ella…" Mark began and Ella could see where this was going.

"Dad don't…" Ella warned with a shake of her head, whilst she appreciated Mark trying to do the dad thing and be all touchy feeling with her still half broken self. She was not ready to have him talk about Brewster's with her, mentally she was no ready for that conversation especially since he had been the one to send her there. The odd mention her and Mark could have but Ella was years away from being able to talk about that time of her life with Mark.

"Okay, we don't have to talk about it Ells, let's talk about your mom some more…" Mark offered.

"You know she left me two handwritten books when she died? One of them was her pregnancy diary, she wrote in everyday from when she found out she was pregnant with me till the day I was born. The second was this kind if guide for me, inside she put down everything that she thought I would ever need to know. There's all this advice in it and mom talks about different stages of her life when she was growing and there's all these photos. It's pretty cool…"

"Well that's not surprising as your mom was a pretty amazing woman, just like you are Ella. Everyday your are continually surprising me and you remind me so much of your mom. She'd be so proud of you Ella, I know I am." Mark said and it caused Ella to beam.

"Your becoming a very sentimental old fool, do you know that dad? I think you've been spending too much time with Uncle Derek recently…" Ella teased but Mark didn't reply at first, he just looked at Ella and there was this look in his eyes that she couldn't really describe.

"I love you Ella, you know that right?"

Ella wasn't expecting that. Literally that was the last thing she had ever expected Mark to say to her, she knew Mark loved her as he was her dad and parents did love their kids. But Ella couldn't recall Mark every saying it to her when she was younger and so it took her off guard especially the look in his eyes, she could see Mark really meant it. "I do."


	25. Chapter 25

Ella couldn't believe her eyes when she saw him in Seattle Grace, standing there like he had no care in the world, looking the same as how Ella reminded him. It shocked her to see him there but what was even shocking was that Derek was with him, talking to Bradley Manning like nothing was wrong. But then again as Ella reminded herself Derek was blissfully in the dark about how Ella knew Bradley and the extent of their relationship. Ella many not have known why Bradley was here but taking an educated guess, Derek was somehow involved and she didn't like it. Not at all so Ella waited until Derek had finished talking to Bradley and a nurse wheeled him off somewhere before she made her way over to Derek. She needed answers and she needed them now before got too emotional.

"Hey Ella, are you here to see Luke?" Derek asked and Ella just ignored the question, not to be rude but it was kind of irrelevant at the moment as she had other thing to concentrate on other than Luke. Although she was here to see him but that got kind of side tracked by Bradley Messing popping up in Seattle, he could have gone to any hospital but he had to turn up in the hospital in which Ella's father and uncle happened to work.

"That boy in the wheelchair, are you treating him?" Ella asked straight away not beating around the bush. She didn't have time to make small talk because the longer that Bradley Manning was in this hospital and she was aware of it, was making Ella's anxiety levels go up and she just had the urge to feel. She wanted to go home, pack her bags and get the hell out of Seattle as far as she could but with her leg in the state that it was, leaving was pretty hard to do.

"I am."

"What for?" Ella demanded

"I can't tell you that Ella, you know that." Derek said and Ella could just feel the anger welling up in her, although Derek didn't tell her what he was treating Bradley Manning for, he did confirm he was treating him, which meant something neurologically was wrong with him. Which would probably require surgery.

"You can't treat boy Uncle Derek." Ella bluntly said and there was a look of surprise across Derek's face, not that Ella cared all she really cared about was getting Bradley Manning out of this hospital as fast as she could. He had already been here far too long and Ella's head hurt just from knowing that he was in the same building as her, interacting with people that she knew and was going to be operated on by a member of her family. Ella was having a hard time processing that information along with everything else that was running through her head at the moment. There was so much going on that Ella felt like her head was going to explode because there was so much going on within it.

"Ella."

"I am asking you not to do this Uncle Derek, I know it's a lot to ask and normally I wouldn't ask something this big but you can't treat him. You need to find him to someone else who can treat him out of Seattle and you need to do it now…" Ella stated as she looked around, half of her was in this conversation with Derek the other half was looking around for the best ways to escape and get out of the hospital the fastest way she could. If she couldn't convince Derek to do anything, then she'd leave Seattle. Ella would get on a plane and go somewhere, anywhere where Bradley Manning wasn't.

"It doesn't work like that Ella, Bradley and his family came a long way to get my help and I want to help them. I can't not treat him just because you don't want me to." Derek explained and this feeling of being disappointed yet again but she should be able to trust was all too familiar to Ella. This reminded Ella of when she went to ask for help all those years ago and the people who were supposed to help her just said no and turned a blind eye to everything that was happening to her. In this moment Ella felt stupid for trusting Derek when he said he would help her.

Ella couldn't even look at Derek as her eyes began welling up as all the memories that she had tried so hard to repress these last few months. "Uncle Derek, I need you to do this for me, please."

"How do you know Bradley?" Derek asked as he finally started connected the dots and realized that Ella somehow knew Bradley Manning.

"M-Minnesota." Ella chocked out as she couldn't say the name of the place where she had met Bradley, the place that had almost killed and what she had spent the last few months of her life hiding from. But it always seemed to catch up with her, refusing to let go of Ella and now it was here in Seattle and it was sending Ella way over the edge. Her worst nightmare was that she'd never escape from Brewster's and now it had seemingly come true.

"Bradley and his family few here from Minnesota and you used to go to school there…" Derek slowly said. "Do you know him from Brewster's."

Ella slowly nodded her head, feeling like she had been punched in the gut when Derek had mentioned her old school, the place that had made her life hell on earth and which she had barely escaped. "H-He was the one who c-cut off my h-hair…"

"Oh my god Ella…" Derek began taking a step towards Ella but she just stepped back, she didn't want someone to hug her and say they were sorry and give her comfort and sympathy. She didn't want anyone touching her or giving her sympathy in the slightest, Ella just wanted Bradley gone from her.

"He needs to go." Ella blankly said.

"Ella he has a brain tumor I need to remove." Derek said using his soft tone of voice was used regularly when she was in some kind of state and he was trying to calm her down. Derek made his way over to Ella and placed his hands on her shoulders but she smacked them off straight away.

"Get off me!" Ella yelled as she began hitting Derek in the chest.

"Your mad Ella and I get that, you have every right to be mad…" Derek began.

"If you get it then why are you doing this to me? He t-tripped me down the stairs constantly, he along with all his friend grabbed me from my b-bed, tied me to a chair and all stood there laughing as they cut off my h-hair. My head was stuck down toilets Uncle Derek twice a week for months on end, I was locked in supply closest for hours on end and Bradley got his girlfriend to break into my gym locker to stick my clothes down the toilet. I had my books and my possessions stolen, my locker was vandalized repeatedly. Y-You told me that when I agreed to stay here that you'd help me, but how the hell is helping him helping me?" Ella sobbed and she felt so weak, helpless like she had lost control of everything here. Ella couldn't be there anymore, she needed to go somewhere where she could be alone and be in control.

Her life had somewhat resembled being normal once again, she was happy and no longer was having nightmares or night terrors. She had made friends and avoiding talking about Brewster's in any shape and form, repressing the most harrowing of the experiences that she had there. It wasn't taking over her life anyone. But now all that progress was lost, she felt like that girl again who was ostracized by everyone and was struggling to survive and living in a constant nightmare. Walking as fast as she could which wasn't much Ella made her way into the elevator and soon as she was inside Ella pressed every single button she could. Ella was anxious and she could see that her hands were shaking when she pressed the elevator buttons but it wasn't until the doors were shut that she no longer felt like she saw drowning.


	26. Chapter 26

When Mark came out of post-op after making sure his patient was okay, the first thing he decided to do was go grab a coffee and something to eat as his surgery had taken slightly longer than he expected which meant that he had missed lunch with Ella. Whilst Mark had one of the scrub nurses call Ella to tell her to go ahead without him, it didn't mean that he had got a chance to eat and right now Mark could really do with a sandwich. Coming back onto the surgical wing Mark headed towards the elevator to go to the cafeteria when he was stopped by Derek. As hungry as Mark was, he could stop and talk to Derek for a few minutes. "Don't suppose you want to go grab some lunch?"

"Mark we have a bit of a problem." Derek began and Mark could see that there was something bothering his best friend. It was just of question of what it was and how much alcohol was going to be needed to solve this problem. "It's Ella."

"What happened?" Mark immediately asked as the fear began lining his stomach about whatever was going on with his daughter. One of the things Mark hated was the fear that came along with being a parent, the worry was always in the back of his mind and whilst Ella was generally fine most of the time, there were occasions where she wasn't just fine and that seemed to be happening a lot lately. And Mark didn't like it at all.

"I had a patient come in today and Ella must have seen him with me because she asked me not to treat him. She was really adamant about it, telling me that I needed to have another surgeon treat my patient. At the time I didn't understand why she was doing this or why she was getting upset about it. It took me a while before I realized that Ella must know my patient Bradley Manning and when I asked her she told me she knew him from Minnesota. Ella knows my patient from Brewster's and apparently he was the ring leader of the gang who picked on her whilst she was there. This boy is the one responsible for the late night hair cut Ella received before she ran away and came here." Derek announced and Mark had felt like he had been punched in the gut.

"Oh god." Mark wearily said after a moment, it was never a good thing when that school was brought up. It held too much bad memories for Ella and she refused to talk about her time there with anyone, Mark had tried along with Derek but it always fell on blank ears. Mark was no psychiatrist but he figured that Ella was trying to forget about her time there. He didn't know the full extent of what happened at Ella's time at Brewster's but he knew about Ella being victimized by students there. The extent of it was so bad that she was terrified that they would have killed had she not fled, Ella also had night terrors for months. The ordeal was too much for Ella, her time at that school had changed her from the girl she was before he had sent her there. Recently Mark had thought that they had put the whole ordeal behind them but the reappearance of one of her old classmates brought everything back up and was going to cause god knows what damage to an already fragile girl. "Where us she?"

"Before I tell you where she is Mark you need to listen to me, it's not good. It's like she's had some kind of breakdown, she won't talk to anyone or even acknowledge them. I've tried to talk to her, as well as Callie. Meredith is sitting with her now but there's no response from her, there's just this vacant look on her face for almost two hours now." Derek explained and Mark was half paying attention as whilst the possibility his daughter was having some kind of psychiatric episode was important, but right now he just wanted to be with Ella.

"Derek where is my daughter?" Mark demanded.

"The on call room."

As soon as Derek had said where Ella was Mark took off, he was annoyed as hell that this had been going on for about two hours now and no one thought to tell him, But Mark would take care of that later, right not he had to be with Ella and figure out how to make this better for her. Ella had come so far to just be pushed off the edge again because of a mistake he made two years. When he reached the on call room Mark opened the door and at first he didn't see Ella, he just saw Meredith standing in the dimly lit room.

"She's over there." Meredith quietly said pointing to the corner of the room and sure enough Mark could make out Ella by the bottom of her moon boot. Most of her was blocked by the beds but as he walked towards Ella he could see her. Derek was right about the vacant look in her eyes but he didn't mention that her eyes themselves were all red and puffy no doubt from crying. She was shaking like a leaf and her hands were balled up into fists like she was ready to hit someone. It broke Mark's heart seeing Ella like this and he knew he had to fix this, no matter how long it took. Taking a deep breath Mark sat down next to Ella and waited for any hint of acknowledgement but it never came.

"Hey kiddo." Mark began.

No response.

"Derek told me what happened, it must have been a real shock to the system seeing that boy again and I know it's upset you very much Ells and I was hoping that we could talk about it. I know that you don't like talking about your time away before you came to Seattle but I was hoping that the two of us could talk about it for a little bit, if that's okay?" Mark asked.

Yet again there was no response and Mark was starting to really understand what Derek meant and it made him wonder whether he should have taken Derek's advice months ago but about getting Ella some professional help. At the time Mark refused because he was trying to stay on Ella's good side and he was adamant that she would come to him in her own time when she wanted help. Mark couldn't help but wonder if he had got Ella help then maybe this entire thing could have been avoided.

"Okay you don't want to talk right so how about I talk for a bit and you jump in when you're good and ready?" Mark asked but he received no response.

Last thing Mark wanted to do was get Ella put on a psychiatric hold for 72 hours. But if things didn't start to improve then he may just have to as he was starting to suspect that Derek was right about Ella possibly having some kind of breakdown, not that Mark could actually blame her. Ella had gone through more than anyone her age should have to.

"I have a confession to make, I didn't send you to B…" Mark began but stopping himself before he said Brewster's as no doubt just mentioning it would upset Ella even further than she already was. "I didn't send you away to boarding school because of me and Addison. I know you think that I sent you away because of that Ella but I swear that wasn't the reason."

Somehow that did the trick as Ella turned her head to look at him, she wouldn't say anything but Mark was happy that she hadn't turned into a complete zombie. No doubt she wanted to hear why he had sent her to the boarding school from hell and as much as Mark wasn't keen on telling this story, he knew Ella deserved the truth.

"You are everything to me, I need you to know that Ella, everything and more… But two years ago I didn't know how to be a father to you and I know it sounds crazy Ella. Here I'm saying that I didn't know how to be a father when I've always been in your life as your dad. I wasn't the most frequent parent because of med school and the first few years of my residency but you had mom. I don't know whether you know this but before mom died we had never really be alone together for more than two hours. Your mom, Derek or a relative was always with us, Then mom died and custody of you went to me and it was something that your mother fully supported. And I didn't have a clue what I was doing as your mom was always there to tell me what to do and Derek, Addison, Sam and Naomi told me I'd pick up as I went along." Mark explained before taking a break to see if anything had changed with Ella but it hadn't.

She still wasn't saying anything and there was still that worrying vacant look in her eyes.

"Things started getting harder and I still had no idea what I was doing and then the whole thing with Derek and Addison began… So I sent you away but it wasn't because you found out about me and Addison. Sending you away was the biggest mistake of my life but I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. I didn't know how to be a dad without your mom and I was scared of messing you up like my parents did to me and I didn't want your aunt to tell me what I already knew about being a bad parent So I sent you away to what I thought was a good school, I didn't want you to be disappointed like I was. I wanted you to have a dad that you could be proud of." Mark admitted as Ella turned her head away from him to resume looking at whatever she was looking at when he had arrived. Although he didn't want to admit this but Mark knew it was time to call in a psychiatrist.

"I thought they were going to kill me, him especially…" Ella quietly said. "And now their here, both of them are here…"

"Both? Ella what are you talking talk about? How else is here apart from Bradley?" Mark asked and he watched as Ella's lip started shaking as she attempted to tell him.

"Bradley's mother, s-she knew what was going on there the entire time." Ella replied, stumbling over a few of her words as she spoke.

"What do you mean Bradley's mother knew?" Mark asked getting confused as it was clear that he was missing a huge part of the puzzle that Ella had seemingly been keeping to herself for quite some time. As never before could Mark recall Ella ever mentioning that one of the parents of a student at that school was aware of what was happening to her. It made Mark sick to his stomach that someone's parent knew all of this and did nothing about it.

"She knew because I told her every time t-they did something to me but she did nothing b-because she happened to be the Principal of that place." Ella revealed and Mark couldn't help but frown, when he had called Brewster's years ago about sending Ella there he had spoken to the Principal, a Principal Hadley. Who had assured him that Ella would fit right in at Brewster's and enjoy her time there. And now he was finding out that it was her son who had been giving his daughter hell and more for two years.

"Your telling me that Principal Hadley is this Bradley Manning's mother and she knew what was going on the entire time you were there and did nothing?" Mark asked unable to believe his ears over what he was hearing. It kind of explained everything as to why he had never heard anything from the school during Ella's time there. It also explained why Ella had trouble trusting him and Derek when she first arrived, Ella had put her trust in this woman and she did nothing to help her. No doubt that had a big effect on Ella's ability to trust and why she found it easier to keep things to herself.

"She goes by her maiden name there." Ella quietly said and Mark could hear the quiet sound of sniffling and looking over Mark could see that she was trying to stop herself from crying. Unable to see his daughter in so much pain Mark pulled Ella closer to him and wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in so she could rest her head against him.

"I will fix this Ella, I promise you that."


	27. Chapter 27

Ella should have known this was coming. That the universe wouldn't let her actually be happy for the first time in three years and believing that she could move on from what was no doubt the most difficult few years of her life. Ella had become way too comfortable in her new life in Seattle that the universe was no smacking her back down to remind Ella of her place. Ella thought that she had finally escaped the horrors of what she had encountered at Brewsters and since she never talked about her time there, that she could just push it out of her mind and try to forget that time had ever happened. Ella thought she had escaped but that wasn't the case as Brewsters was here in the form of Bradley Manning, the boy who made it his life mission to make her life hell. To Ella, Bradley was the boogeyman. The thing that went bump in the night and lurked around in the shadows. He was the reason why she had to sleep with a light on and keep her bedroom door open so she could hear if anyone was coming. Ella thought she had escaped from Bradley when she ran away from Brewsters but now he was here in Seattle, to be operated on by her godfather of all and just seeing Bradley was enough to cause Ella to breakdown. All the control that Ella had regained in the last few months had done, causing her to revert back to the anxious and paranoid girl she and been when she had first arrived. Ella needed to escape but the fear somehow managed to cripple her so much that Ella was unable to leave Seattle Grace so instead she sought sanctuary in one of the on call rooms until Derek had found her. By that time Ella had just shut down, her mind was whirling around so much that it was too difficult to even think let alone attempt to form any kind of sentence.

That was until Mark had come and sat with her and explained why he had sent her away to Brewsters. Ella had always thought it was because of his affair with Addison and because he didn't love her but it turns out it was the opposite. Mark and loved her so much and was terrified of screwing Ella up as he didn't know how to be a good dad without the help of Ella's mother, let alone a single parent raising a child all on his own. Mark thought by sending Ella way, he wouldn't repeat the same mistakes that his parents had made with him.

"Rough day, huh?" Alex questioned as he came and sat down beside her and god knows why but Ella laughed as that was pretty much the understatement of the year.

"I just want to run as far as I can, as fast as my legs can take me until I'm far away from it all. I don't care how long that will take but I just want to run until I can't breathe, till I'm out breath and so exhausted that I won't be afraid to turn around and see everything has caught up with me again." Ella wearily noted feeling the urge to cry but Ella knew that the tears won't going to come as she had cried out all her tears and more. Physically Ella could no longer cry which meant all she could do was sit here and have her memories of her time at Brewster's continue to attack her brain. Threatening to push Ella off the ledge that she had thought she was free from but apparently not.

"Well I hate to break it to ya kid but you won't get far with that leg of yours." Alex couldn't help but point out and Ella glanced down at her leg, Alex had a point. Ella's somewhat still recovering broken leg hindered her escape not to mention Mark, Ella knew that even if she was able to take off she wouldn't get too far as her father would find her. Ella didn't want to run. She really didn't as she liked her life here in Seattle, she had her dad and Derek, along with Sid and her friends. Seattle was finally home. But her worst nightmare was now here and Ella knew she couldn't stay here whilst Bradley was here. Ella knew her sanity couldn't take it as she already felt like she was falling apart. There had been some low points in Ella's life but never before had she felt that she had fallen so deep into an abyss of darkness.

"Probably not." Ella wearily said. "My dad thinks I've lost my mind and had some kind of mental breakdown, hasn't he?"

"He's worried about you." Alex replied in a vague manner and Ella stilled out a laugh.

"I'm guessing he's considering taking Uncle Derek's advice about getting me professional help. He's been kind of pushing it ever since I came to Seattle but my dad has always refused but Derek's right. I do need help. I can't do this anymore. It hurts way too much and I am so tired of all this, I just want it to stop. I just want to be a normal again, I don't want to be this anymore. The broken and damaged girl way beyond repair."

"Kid, everyone is damaged in someway just look at Meredith and Yang, the two of them are seriously messed up and even I'm not perfect." Alex stated and Ella shook her head as Alex didn't get it, none of them understand.

"This wasn't how I saw my life being. Four years ago I pretty much had the perfect life. I lived in Manhattan and I never wanted for anything, my relatives spoiled me every chance they got but I was no spoiled brat as I was raised around the best people possible. I had a loving family which extended to so many people and then I had my parents. Sure I've always known Mark was a womanizer but I had two parents who loved me are were always there for me. Then my mom died and everything turned to crap and it got worse." Ella replied in a dry manner.

"Life sucks Sloan."

"Did your father send you to the boarding school from hell? Were you stuck in a place that was literally your personal hell for two years where the people there made it a habit to make my life hell. They stole my things, pushed me in the corridors and constantly made fun of it and I ignored it. I tried not to rise to it as I was raised to be a good girl and not use violence to solve my problems. Then it got worse. I was pushed into things on purpose and it was made to look like an accident when it really wasn't. My head was dunked down toilets and one weekend they locked me in a supply cupboard for three hours. It seemed more than that, it seemed more like days." Ella revealed and judging by the look on Alex's face, he had clearly not been expecting to hear something like that."

"I know what it's like not have an ideal home situation. My dad was a drunk and a drug addict and he used to beat the crap out of her, which is something that no kid should have to witness. So one day when I was old enough I did something about it, I beat the crap out of him, bad enough that the bastard ended up in the hospital and he took off after that. Haven't seen or heard from him since." Alex quietly stated and Ella was surprised.

"Alex…"

"Look, what I'm trying to say to you Sloan is that I get it. Sometimes life hands kids a crappy deal when they should be enjoying their childhoods instead of dealing with crap like deadbeat dads and psychotic classmates. That stuff messes up but that doesn't mean that your crazy.

"I don't know about that Alex… I have to sleep with my door open every night to make sure I can hear if someone tries to get it even though I know that no one is getting through the door as I have to separate locks on the door. I tell myself that I am safe but then I remember them breaking into my room and dragging me off into the night to cut my hair off. I try so hard to forget but I can't, some nights I wake up in a cold sweat because the dreams I have about that place or so real that I think I'm back there and then I cry myself to sleep because I can't even escape that hell hole in my dreams. "I lost who I was. That place tore me to shreds, they took everything to me and left me bare and exposed. I go and tell a shrink about everything that happened, what those people did to me and I'll be forced to admit that wasn't a day there that I didn't want to die, that I just wanted to be free of all the pain and hurt that I as going through. But I couldn't do it. I was too much of a coward." Ella said, admitting to Alex something that she hadn't told anyone before, if her father knew this then he would definitely send her to a shrink and Ella couldn't have that. Ella had heard Mark tell Addison that she wasn't crazy once and Ella wanted it to stay that way, she didn't want her father to think that she was crazy.

"Hey! Listen to me kiddo, you are not a coward. You survived what happened in that crappy hellhole which makes you a survivor. These kids put you through hell but you didn't let them win, you held on. You survived." Alex said in a firm but not too stern manner and Ella felt sort of better. It was nice talking to someone who hadn't had the best experiences in childhood and grown up to do something with their life. Sitting here with Alex gave Ella some hope, that maybe things would get better.

"But for how long Karev? It took all the strength I had to escape from that place and now the monster that I ran away from is here in this hospital." Ella questioned as she didn't have the answers but maybe Alex did as she was tired of always being confused about all of this.

"And he now has a brain tumor, talk about karma being a real bitch." Alex pointed out and Ella couldn't help but let out a laugh. Instantly she regretted it as brain tumors were nothing to laugh about as they were quite serious but Ella still laughed. Alex was right karma was a bitch, but that didn't help her out in the slightest as Bradley and his mother were still here and Mark was god knows where but probably on some sort of rampage in an attempt to try and redeem himself to Ella as he was blaming himself for this fiasco.

"I asked Uncle Derek not to do the surgery, I begged him not to but he's going to do it anyway as that's why Derek does, he saves people." Ella grimly noted.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that Sloan…"

"What are you talking about Karev?" Ella questioned as judging by what Alex had just said, something had clearly been happening whilst she had shut herself off in the on call room in an attempt to literally hide from her past.

"Shepherd told the parents of that kid you used to go to school with that he couldn't do the surgery for person reason and that they would have to go and find someone else and not surprisingly the parents are going ape and the chief isn't too happy about it either…"


End file.
